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CURRENT    ISSUE 
r 

DO ^,  N^rW^tul^^^ 


spring  1997 


Thresholds  Wd 


Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology 
Department  of  Architecture  and  Planning 


Tobin  Bridge,  4:00  am 


massachusetts  institute  of  technology 
department  of  architecture  and  planning 


Thresholds  14 


spring  1997 


Thresholds  14 

spring  1997 

editors 

Robert  Clocker  and  James  O'Brien 

advisory  board 

Stanford  Anderson  (MIT) 
Ellen  Dunham-Jones  (MIT) 
Mark  Jarzombek  (MIT),  chair 

Martin  Bressani 
Zeynep  Celik 
Jean-Louis  Cohen 
Diane  Ghirardo 
Hasan-Uddin  Khan 
Leo  Marx 
Mary  McLeod 
Ikem  Okoye 
Vikram  Prakash 
Mitchell  Schwarzer 
Kazys  Varnelis 
Cheri  Wendelken 
Catherine  Wilkinson  Zerner 
Gwendolyn  Wright 

administrative  assistance 

Natasha  Collins 

Design  and  publication  by  Robert  Clocker  and  James  O'Brien. 
Thanks  to  Lia  Kiladis,  June  Williamson,  Akiko  Takenaka,  Nina 
Chen  and  Jason  Danziger  for  editorial  and  proofreading 
assistance.  Printed  by  The  Pressroom  Printers,  Gloucester, 
Massachusetts.  Body  text  set  in  Minion  and  Berthold  Imago 
type  families;  Threshohls  key  logo  in  Galhard  italic.  Digitally 
published  using  Quark  XPress. 


editorial  policy 

Thresholdi  is  published  and  distributed  biannually  in 
December  and  May  by  the  Department  of 
Architecture  at  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of 
Technology.  The  editorial  goal  is  to  maintain  a  spirit 
of  immediacy,  finding  emerging  sensibilities 
regarding  our  thematic,  and  providing  a  forum  for 
provocative  opinions  and  works  in  progress.  Each 
February  and  September  the  editors  choose  a  theme 
and  issue  a  Call  for  Submissions. 

Thresholds  attempts  only  to  print  original  material 
and  avoids  reprints  from  other  English  language 
architectural  publications.  No  part  of  Thresholds  may 
be  photocopied  or  distributed  without  written 
authorization  from  the  editors. 


Thresholds  is  funded  in  part  by  grants  from  the  Department  of  Architecture 
and  by  MfT  Alumni  support  also  plays  a  major  role,  and  contributors 
donating  $100  or  more  will,  in  future  issues,  be  recognized  as  patrons.  For 
more  infomiation.  please  contact  the  editors  at  the  address  below. 

Please  address  all  editohal  correspondence  to  Thresholds.  Massachusetts 
Institute  of  Technology.  Department  of  Architecture.  7-337  77  Massachusetts 
Avenue.  Cambridge.  MA  02139,  or  thresh@mitedu- 

Opinions  in  Thresholds  are  those  of  the  authors  alone  and  do  not  represent 
the  views  of  the  Depanment  of  Architecture  at  MIT  or  the  individual  editors. 

©  Copyright  1997.  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology 

ISSN:  1091-711X 


contents 


Introduction 


Paul  Carter  7 

with  Charles  Andcnon 

Ignasi  de  Sola-Morales  18 


Christine  McGrath 


lames  K.  Casper 


29 


34 


Against  Projects 

the  Dis/appearance:  waiting  room  collaboration 

Present  and  Futures 

Architecture  in  Cities 

Consolidated  Periphery 

Commercial  and  Highway  Interchange 

Entropy  and  Surfaceness 


Kristina  Hill 


41 


Learning  Where  Not  to  Build 


Panayiota  Pyla  48 

Azin  Valy  &  Suzan  Wines  57 


Gray-areas  in  Green  Politics 

Reflections  on  the  Modern  Environmental  Movement 

Lt.  Petrosino  Park 


James  Wines 


Mark  Bain 


60  Passages 

Some  Notes  on  the  Fusion  of  Buildings  and  Landscape 


70 


Projectiles 


Aspasia  Maheras 
Phillip  Jones 


76  Corporeal  Consciousness 

&  The  Permeability  of  Space  Bath  House 

Industrial  Nocturnes 

photographs 


82 


author  and  illustration  credits 


Thresholds  14 


a 
o 


Natural  Languages 


James  O'Brien  and  Robert  Clocker 


What  does  it  mean  to  design  from  tiie  outside  in? 
What  does  it  mean  to  buUd  our  landscape  with  an 
understanding  beyond  the  naive  conceptions  of 
nature  and  the  environment? 

Cultures  create  metaphors  through  language  and 
storytelling  to  define  their  relationships  with  nature. 
Within  this  context,  institutions  and  practitioners 
today  are  creatively  probing  into  the  traditional  divi- 
sions between  architecture,  urban  design,  and  land- 
scape 'architecture,'  examining  whether  and  how  to 
blur  these  divisions  to  develop  a  curriculum  for  land- 
scape within  architecture  and  planning  departments. 
A  component  of  a  funding  effort  by  the  Graham 
Foundation,  of  which  the  current  Landscape  Initiative 
at  MIT  is  a  part,  this  movement  includes  new 
programs  at  the  University  of  Virginia  as  well  as  the 
University  of  Illinois  at  Chicago,  where  the  term  'land- 
scape urbanism'  is  emblematic  of  this  new  sensibility. 

The  relevance  of  finding  meaningful  correlations 
among  the  disciplines  is  heightened  in  the  light  of  a 
new  environmental  consciousness  that  is  reconsider- 
ing the  very  terms  nature  and  culture  as  integrated 
concepts.  If  the  two  are  intertwined,  neither  exists 
purely.  Conceptions  of  manmade'  as  the  artificial  and 
of 'wilderness'  as  an  unattainable  original  condition 
no  longer  seem  useful. 


Within  this  conception,  one  finds  easy  parodies  of  the 
separateness  of  the  artificial  and  the  natural,  as  well  as 
intellectual  constructs  of  the  total  cohesion  of  man 
and  nature.  Thresholds  14,  however,  investigates  the 
space  between  these  abstractions  with  a  clarity  of  its 
own.  Our  authors — architects,  artists,  landscape  archi- 
tects, and  writers — look  to  map  this  space  through 
workable  concepts  and  constructs:  artwork,  planning, 
building,  and  »iof  building. 

The  photographs  of  Philip  lones  throughout  this  issue 
presents  metaphors  for  the  terrain  covered  in  its 
pages.  In  each  image,  Jones  reframes  industrial  land- 
scapes to  create  a  haunting  ambiguity  as  to  whether  it 
is  nature  or  culture  that  is  in  advance  or  retreat. 

The  visual  artist  Paul  Carter  describes  a  collaborative 
project  with  artist  Charles  Anderson  for  the  Teufels- 
berg,  or  Devil's  Hill  in  Berlin.  While  metaphorically 
doubled  as  a  "dis/appearance,"  the  proposed  excava- 
tion of  this  politically  and  historically  charged  site  of 
erasure  couples  the  mental  terrain  with  the  physical. 
Through  analogies  to  the  excavation  of  Homer's  Troy 
in  Turkey,  and  the  rapid  mental  bridging  of  recent 
"terra  nihilism"  in  the  colonization  of  his  homeland, 
Australia,  Carter  recalls  the  importance  of  the  physical 
palimpsest  built  into  sites  throughout  culture. 

Ignasi  de  Sola-Morales  casts  a  lexographic  scrutiny 
over  the  advance  and  retreat  of  nature/  culture  and  its 
interplay  with  city  planing.  Within  this  essay,  environ- 
mentally inspired  ideas  of 'mutation'  and  'flow'  less 
predictably  mark  important  urban  design  considera- 
tions, illustrating  that  city  building  falls  sway  to 
greater  morphologies  than  the  mere  building  types 
and  shape  grammars  of  urbanism.  Currently  these 
changes  are  manifest  in  the  strikingly  vague  spaces  in 
our  cities  and  suburbs,  where  the  complicity  of  the 
natural  and  the  cultural  is  brutally  yet  subtly  divulged. 


Both  Christine  McGrath  and  lames  Casper  are 
concerned  with  the  exterior  surfaces  of  their  struc- 
tures as  enriched  by  analogies  drawn  from  their 
particular  sites  and  environmental  views.  For 
McGrath,  the  scale  and  speed  issues  raised  by  the  free- 
way interchange  inspire  a  site  ordering  which  also  re- 
reads the  'environment'  of  consumerism.  With 
Casper,  building  skin  technology  takes  cues  form  the 
rules  of  natural  processes,  to  physically  integrate  into 
his  building  'surface'  in  the  form  of  building  materi- 
als. Natural  weather  patterns  'seed'  change  in  his 
facades,  just  as  the  dynamics  of  traffic  seed  the 
signage  surface  of  McGrath's  interchange. 

Kristina  Hill  and  Panayiota  Pyla  address  the  larger 
systems  of  which  human  action  is  only  a  part.  Hill 
contests  terms  such  as  site  planning,  sustainability, 
and  the  notion  of  landscape  design  as  a  discrete  act 
until  they  emerge  with  meaning;  described  and 
defined  by  methods,  modes  of  analysis  and  built 
examples.  Her  attitude  demands  projects  that  carry 
formal  beauty  with  results  quantifiable  within  a 
meaningful  ecology.  Pyla's  work  scrutinizes  the  very 
notion  of  environmental  consciousness  itself  Negoti- 
ating among  historical  conceptions  of  environmental 
consciousness,  she  argues  for  a  synthesis  between  the 
analysis/paralysis  of  postmodern  relativism  and  the 
over-ambitious  globalizing  assertions  of  modernist 
environmental  thought. 

Azin  Valy  and  Suzan  Wines  might  very  well  be  illus- 
trating this  sort  of  negotiation.  They  present  a  design 
for  a  Brooklyn  park  with  a  dynamic  infrastructure 
that  incorporates  both  the  natural  and  the  social 
cycles  of  a  locality.  Seasonal  variation  in  plant  life 
reciprocate  with  periodic,  celebratory  'attachments'  to 
the  structures. 

Next,  we  find  in  James  Wines  a  tireless  voice  exposing 
the  naivete  of  typical  architectural  conceptions  of  the 


landscape  as  separate  and  additive  to  the  act  of  build- 
ing design.  He  explores  meaning  through  integration 
of  the  environment  and  building.  His  morphologies 
and  methodologies  posit  ecological  consciousness  as 
an  innovative  building  approach. 

Mark  Bain,  a  visual  artist,  sees  the  natural  process  of 
decay  itself  as  a  generative,  potentially  positive  force.  He 
pushes  in  another  direction  an  idea  shared  with  James 
Wines  and  Kristina  Hill;  that  the  over-abundance  of 
building  and  development  is  an  untenuated  force  today. 
Bain  fashions  a  splendidly  blunt  proposal  for  the 
surreptitious  'seeding'  of  decay  onto  buildings.  With 
entropy  as  an  intellectual  field  of  knowledge  in  bio- 
science,  he  follows  some  of  the  same  guidelines  as 
James  Casper,  but  via  a  radically  different  methodology. 

Aspasia  Maheras,  like  Azin  Valy  and  Suzan  Wines, 
addresses  the  difficulties  and  environmental  sacrifices 
of  living  in  the  contemporary  city.  Occupying  two 
New  York  City  rowhouse  lots,  her  bathhouse  project 
interiorizes  'natural'  needs  and  bodily  awareness.  The 
'floor'  becomes  a  continuous  surface  of  water,  the 
'ceUing'  an  outlet  to  the  sky.  Between,  the  visitor 
moves  among  ephemeral  platforms,  screens,  and 
bridges,  subservient  to  the  greater  intJuence  of  the 
sky/water  elements.  The  body  in  the  city  is  rejoined 
with  these  elements  quantifiably  deficient  in  both  the 
urban  experience  and  within  our  culture  at  large;  thus 
bodies  become  the  third  integral  component  of  nature 
in  her  interior  landscape. 

Maheras'  notion,  then,  of  'corporeal  consciousness' 
leaves  us  where  we  began,  in  hopes  of  raising  simulta- 
neous awareness  of  how  we  can  build  the  bodies 
(nature)  and  minds  (culture)  of  our  cities  and  land- 
scapes at  once.  We  have  no  other  choice  actually,  for 
both  will  be  built  and  unbuilt  in  each  action  and  plan 
that  we  take. 


Tlnrslwlds  14 


Against  Projects 

the  Dis/appearance;  waiting  room  collaboration 

Paul  Carter  with  Charles  Anderson 


A  typology  of  projects  would  be  interesting.  It  would  reveal  that  even  the  projects 
self-consciously  designed  for  the  salon  des  refuses  of  official  urban  and  landscape 

design  mobilize  a  rhetoric  of 

Dis/appearance:  waiting  room  #1-7  emblem  of  the  series  derived  from  H.    throwing    forward.    Renegot-  figure  1 

Scfiliemann,  Troy  and  Its  Remains  (first  published  1875;  reprinted  1976  by     ...  .    ^  »■  i    j-     ■ 

.,,,,,,      „,„  ,    .  ,.„      ,  ,  ,  lations  between  spatial  disci- 

Arno  Press.  New  mrW),  plate  XIB,  facing  p. 290.   Six  of  the  jars  are  shown.  "^ 

and  a  seventh  Cbroken)  lies  outside  of  the  cut  to  the  nght."  Besides  plines   occur,   as   it   were,   on 

embodying  the  dis/appearance  paradox  charactenstic  of  any  archaeology.  ,        ,        ft]  A  *       •<■         n'ff 

the  jars  appear  as  dependent  Cor  footless)  objects,  allied  to  the  lie  of  the  '                              '' 

land;  as  wine-storage  jars  they  also  figure  rates  of  exchange,  ent   positions — diverse   design 

philosophies  driven  by  antago- 
nistic social  and  political  visions — are  adopted;  but  the  conceptual  language 
remains  translatable  back  into  the  very  discourse  of  projective  geometry  that 
characterizes  the  linear  koine  of  public  and  corporate  planning.  In  its  presuppo- 
sition of  a  tabula  rasa  environment  (or  in  its  engineering  assumption  that  a  flat- 
tened ground  is  the  condition  of  design,  even  if  the  intended  effect  is 
picturesque),  contemporary  architecture  and  its  disciplinary  affiliates  faithfully 
perpetuate  a  mental  topography  going  back  to  the  Romans.  The  other  of  this 
emptied-out  space  is  an  array  of  equally  mythic  landscape  features  such  as  the  cut 
or  the  abyss.  In  a  familiar  self-serving  double-bind  of  Western  logos,  the  abyss  is 
no  sooner  announced  than  it  has  to  be  bridged.  The  bridge,  whose  suturing  of 
formerly  remote  banks  is  so  lovingly  evoked  by  Heidegger,  is  also  the  drawbridge 
of  empire. 


Tlnrsholds  14 


viewing  platform,  West  Berlin, 
overlooking  Berlin  wall  In  no- 
man's  land.  Found  object, 
research  material  for 
dis/appearance:  waiting  room 
#5.  Pure  expression  of  history 
as  waiting  room.  The  abyss/ 
wall  creates  Its  own  other, 
desire  Is  a  visual  drawbridge. 
Ignoring  the  visual  matrix,  the 
historical  trace  of  occupation, 
it  overlooks  the  void. 

Photograph:  Charles  Ar>derson, 
1988. 


Projections  also  project  a  temporal  paranoia:  the  desire 
to  engineer  a  leap  over  the  intervening  space  is  driven  by 

deadlines,  progress  towards  the 
figure  2 vanishing  point  of  permanence 

(even  if  the  market  makes  perma- 
nence relative).  Engineers  and  architects  predicate  their 
vvfork  on  accelerating  site  amnesia — ignorance  of  land 
rights  can  also  speed  up  the  process.  The  idea  that 
events  might  come  to  meet  us  is  inconceivable;  even 
Robert  Smithson's  elegant  quarries,  drawing  attention  to 
the  temporality  of  time,  could  not  slow  things  down.  To 
suggest  that  habitat  design  entails  attention  to  rates  of 
spatio-temporal  exchange — comparable,  say,  to  the 
growth  and  decay  cycles  of  natural  systems  or  even  to 
the  assymetrical  double-structure  of  human  dialogue — 
is  almost  to  report  the  apocryphal.  (It  is  telling  that  in 
our  project-based  tradition  the  term  apocrypha,  mean- 
ing 'properly  hidden,"  rapidly  came  to  signify  'ground- 
less, false.')  Waiting  is  imagined  as  the  temporal 
dimension  of  emptiness;  the  corollary  of  this  abyssal 
logic,  buildings  as  stages  waiting  for  time  to  begin, 
explains  the  frenetic  concern  to  make  public  spaces 
functional,  as  if  a  pseudo-theatricality  (or  visual  busy- 
ness) can  prevent  the  appearance  of  the  new  space  being 
seen  for  what  it  is,  a  disappearance  in  disguise. 


Against  this  admittedly  summary  background  artist 
Charles  Anderson  and  I  are  currently  engaged  in  a  seven- 
part  collaboration  generically  known 
as  dis/appearance:  waiting  room.  figuee^  _ 

Writing  recently  about  the  scope  of 
our  work,  I  identified  its  concern  with  "the  direction  and 
notation  of  a  social  space  where  different,  less  brutal  forms 
of  exchange  (of  passage,  of  met  and  missed  desire)  are 
conceivable — and  practicable,"  commenting,  "it  is  exclu- 
sively at  home  neither  in  the  gallery  nor  in  the  abandoned 
sites  of  the  post-industrial  city.  Engaged  in  marking  forms 
of  eventfulness,  an  art  of  poses,  orientations,  arrange- 
ments, it  is  opportunistic,  in  a  good  sense  parasitic  on 
environments  in  a  state  of  disappearance.  These  it  may  be 
said  to  colonize  in  a  different  way — in  the  process  implic- 
itly reflecting  on  the  brutalism  of  urban  renewal  programs 
that  stigmatize  the  in-between  as  ruin,  void..." 

This  description  can  be  criticized  for  a  rhetoric,  a  projec- 
tive style,  all  too  familiar  from  the  inflated  self-descriptions 
architects  and  their  writers  give  of  their  work.  Still  it  inti- 
mates our  desire  not  to  inhabit  a  moral  high-ground,  not 
to  occupy  a  post-colonial  viewing-platform  that  pretends 
to  transcend  previous  ideological  blindspots.  The  question 
might  be:  how  to  ameliorate  a  history  of  colonialism?  how 
to  advance  differently?  A  different  poetics  of  urban  and 
landscape  design  might  involve  an  analogue  practice,  one 
grounded  in  rates  of  exchange,  where  two  terms  punningly 
alike  but  semantically  diverse — chorography  and  choreog- 
raphy— converge.  This  at  any  rate  is  the  theory:  what  of 
the  practice? 

The  fifth  of  the  dis/appearance:  waiting  rooms  is  devised 
for  the  Teufelsberg  or  Devil's  Hill  on  the  south-west  edge 
of  Berlin.  After  the  fall  of  Berlin  (1945)  whatever  the 
heroic  Trummerfrauen  could  not  salvage  from  the  wreck- 
age and  use  to  rebuild  the  "dead  heart"  of  the  city  was 
heaped  up  to  form  the  Trummerberge  or  "rubble  hUls",  the 
most  dramatic  of  which  is  the  Teufelsberg  in  the 
Grunewald,  a  rich  site  of  historical  dis/appearance.  There 
is  the  obvious  fact  that  over  the  years  the  Teufelsberg  has 
come  to  appear  like  a  natural  hill,  thus  concealing  its 


historical  eruption  out  of  human  ruin.  More 
site  specifically,  there  is  the  paradox  that  as 
the  site  where  the  traumatic  material 
evidence  of  defeat  was  piled  up  and 
concealed,  the  Teufelsberg  has  become  a 
commanding  viewing  platform,  providing 
Berlin  with  what  it  lacked  before,  "an  excel- 
lent view  over  the  inner  city."  The  hundred- 


Dis/appearance:  waiting  room 
#/.  found  wood,  bandaging, 
iodine,  mercunchrome.  Anna 
Schwartz  Gallery,  Melbourne, 
1995.  An  arrangement  of 
bandaged  architectural  moulds, 
accompanied  by  a  display  of 
stain  patterns  formed  by  first 
and  second  generation  "drop- 
pings" of  off-cut  masking  tape. 
The  catalogue  essay  evoked  a 
connection  with  Schliemann's 
excavations  at  Troy:  "Gaping 
holes,  footless  bridges,  half- 
arches;  ruins  before  their  time, 
queuing,  the  outsiders  guess. 


for  a  waiting  cure-an  ending 
odd  metre  high  Teufelsberg  is  par  excellence  a     of  the  ending,  separations 

suture,  elastic  infancy  again." 


Photograph:  Charles  Anderson. 


blindspot:  only  by  not  seeing  what  it  is — the 
act  of  historical  amnesia  it  represents — can  we 
project  ourselves  towards  a  glorious,  if  crane- 
punctuated,  future. 

These  paradoxes  of  site/sight  are  systemic  in  our  culture  of 
removal  and  reuse,  and  to  point  them  out  is  not  to  under- 
stand their  meaning.  The  author  of  System  and  Structure, 
Tony  WUden,  notes  elsewhere,  "In  therapy,  sometimes  the 
only  way  to  begin  to  help  people  in  a  dangerous  double  bind 
they  cannot  ordinarily  escape  is  to  explain  how  the  double 
bind  works  and  then  put  them  in  a  double  bind  they  can  get 
out  of."  In  this  explanatory  spirit  we  introduce  a  second 
"rubbish  hill",  Hissarlik,  the  site  of  Homer's  Troy  situated  in 
north-west  Turkey  near  the  Dardanelles,  and  excavated  by  the 
German  millionaire  and  treasure-seeker,  Heinrich  Schlie- 
mann.  Schliemann's  obsessive  belief  that  Prima's  Troy  stood 
on  bedrock  meant  that  he  destroyed  the  later,  covering  strata 
where,  in  fact,  material  support  for  Homer's  poems  might 
have  been  found.  And,  as  Schliemann,  dug  down,  so  "rubbish 
hills"  began  to  grow,  volcano-like  in  the  adjacent  plain. 
Nowadays  the  hill  of  Hissarlik  resembles  nothing  so  much  as 
an  open-cut  mine  or  a  construction  site. 


Thresholds  14 


CD 


ireJ^ 


10  Schliemann  and  Berlin's  imperial  fantasy  are  closely  related; 

his  so-called  "Priam's  Treasure"  presented  to 
l4 the  German  people  had  the  same  symbolic 

function  as  the  Pergamene  Altar  (also  wrested 
from  western  Turkey):  it  seemed  retrospectively  to  legitimate 
German's  imperial  design,  reflected  not  least  in  Bismarck's 
expansive  program  of  public  works.  But  rather  than  explore 
the  imperial  ideology  subdy  expressed  in  this  archaeological- 
architectural  nexus,  the  practical  point  here  is  the  superim- 
position  of  Hissarlik  on  Teufelsberg.  Our  idea,  very  simply,  is 
to  stage  the  excavation  of  Hisarlik  on  the  plateau-summit  of 
the  Teufelsberg,  an  event  that  would  not  only  restage  a  dis/ 
appearance  act  but  "explain"  it.  Our  interest  in  superimposi- 
tion  might  be  thought  childish.  So  it  is:  it  is  inspired  by  those 
Children's  Encyclopaedia  superimpositions  of  the  Eiffel 
Tower  on  the  Cheops  Pyramid  or  the  outline  of  Australia  on 
the  map  of  the  United  States.  But  these  fantasies  of  compari- 
son have  venerable  roots — in,  say,  Neapolitan  philosopher 
Giambattista  Vico's  "poetic  geography"  whereby  familiar 
names  and  arrangements  of  names  are  transposed  to  new 
countries,  where  they  give  the  colonists  an  illusion  of  being 
at  home.  Poetic  transpositions  of  this  kind  are  indeed  inte- 
gral to  the  imperial  project.  Superimposed  on  an  already 
named  cultural  landscape  they  stage  another  form  of  appear- 
ance as  disappearance. 


Dis/appearance:  wailing  room  #2.  found  space,  photography,  postcards. 
Wollongong  Art  Gallery  and  Environs,  1995.  Responding  to  the  invitation 
to  make  a  "site-specific"  installation,  Anderson  took  a  jigsaw  of  a  local 
landscape,  which  the  Gallery  was  "completing"  as  an  analogue  of  its 
own  fund-raising  activities.  As  our  catalogue  text  observed  of  this  visual 
re-colonization:  "A  BLACK  HISTORY/  Where  would  it/  The  missing 
piece/ 1  mean/  Of  the  jigsaw./  Where  would  it  fit  in?/  A  BLOT  ON  THE 
LANDSCAPE." 


Dis/appearance:  waiting  room 
#5,  'Plan  de  la  Barriere  et  du 
Bureau  de  la  Sante'  from  J. 
Houel,  Viagglo  in  Sicilia  e  a 
Malta  (orlg.  in  French,  1782; 
reprinted  in  Italian  as.  'Storia  di 
Napoli  e  della  Sicilia'  Societa 
Editore.  Palermo,  1977,  table 
CCLIV.  "Our  proposal  is  to 
throw  the  Quarantine  Station  of 
Malta  over  the  site  occupied  by 
the  Australian  Centre  of 
Contemporary  Art  [Melbourne]" 
The  multimedia  installation  is 
planned  to  coincide  with  the 
decommissioning  of  ACCA  at 
the  end  of  1998.  A  class  of 
"event-things"  is  intended  for 
this  "museum  of 
dis/appearances":  "double- 
objects,  which  exist  only  as 
relationships  or  conditions  of 
dialogue:  ob|ects  which  lean, 
espousing  an  other  which  is  not 
a  compensatory  prop  but  fulfills 
a  desire;  part-objects  which, 
against  the  psychoanalytical 
orthodoxy,  are  not  incomplete 
but  possess  multiple  centers  of 
gravity."  CDesign  concept.  1996] 


rrrn 


*******        4        *-t-»'***'i^i.t'^M 


The  therapeutic  value  of  our  stiperimposition  would  consist  in 
revealing  the  ideological  double-bind  signified  by  our  solidus, 
that  "/"  of  our  term  "dis/appearance."  Staged  on  a  hill  without  a 
history,  archaeological  digs  and  a  second  Schliemannopolis  of 
associated  structures  at  once  identifies  itself  as  a  hoax.  What  can 
it  mean  to  excavate  a  site  where  no  rules  of  stratification  pertain, 
where  every  part  belongs  to  the  same  cataclysmic  month  or  six 
weeks?  And,  digging  down,  nothing  hidden  can  be  brought  to 
light,  yet  what  lies  everywhere  on  the  surface  of  the  site  itself  is 
now  uncomfortably  remembered.  The  ephemeral  architecture 
and  associated  actions — chorography  as  choreography — not  only 
enact  the  ideological  paradox  of  a  history  grounded  in  a  rhetoric 
of  place  predicated  on  the  destruction  of  sites;  it  reveals  the  para- 
dox as  a  "tangled  contradiction,"  that  is,  as  an  artifact  of  imperial, 
and  projective,  thinking.  And  it  does  this  by  an  analogue  process; 
not  by  seeking  to  impose  on  the  site  another  permanent  solution, 
but  through  an  act  of  motivated  mimicry. 


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Dis/appearance:  waiting  room  #«,  photographic  technology  and  light 
boxes,  1988-1997  Scheduled  for  Anna  Schwartz  Gallery.  Melbourne, 
1997.  Nullbildung.  the  left-over  images/non-images  at  the  beginnings 
and  ends  of  slide-film,  have  no  name  in  English.  Where  the  conscious 
photographic  gaze  closes  its  eye.  the  technological  unconscious 
surfaces,  characteristically  as  a  chromatically-banded  boundary  and  a 
remainder  of  tilted  architecture.  The  significance  of  the  ambiguous 
status  of  these  images  is  hinted  at  in  the  earlier  catalogue  note  for 
dis/appearance:  wailing  room  #  /:  "This  will  be  another  ambiguity  of 
the  dialectic,  that  it  presupposes  a  shadow  narrative  of  might-have- 
beens':  without  this  theatrical  context,  the  narrative  of  the  powerful 

would  have  no  meaning" 


Readers  patient  enough  to  follow  the  argument  thus  far 
may  well  be  wondering  what  the  status  of  the  proposed 
work  is:  will  it,  can  it,  be  made  in  sitifi. 

If  not  what  is  its  status?  Implicit  in flgiue  6_ 

these  questions  is  the  assimilation  of 
the  conception  to  a  project.  Interestingly,  a  particular 
temporality  attaches  to  this  assimilation.  Thus,  the  ques- 
tion is  in  a  sense:  what  are  you  waiting  for? — a  question 
that  already  positions  the  work  in  relation  to  an  architec- 
tural paradigm,  as  a  future  event  to  be  fitted  into  a  pre- 
existing space-time.  One  might  recall  Watt's  meditation  on 
the  circular  painting  in  Beckett's  novel:  "Was  the  picture  a 
fixed  and  stable  member  of  the  edifice,  like  Mr  Knott's  bed, 
for  example,  or  was  it  simply  a  manner  of  paradigm,  here 
today  and  gone  tomorrow,  a  term  in  a  series,  like  the  series 
of  Mr  Knott's  dogs,  or  the  series  of  Mr  Knott's  men,  or  like 
the  centuries  that  fall,  from  the  pod  of  eternity."  The  circu- 
lar painting  alludes  to  Vico's  conception  of  historical 
ricorsi,  of  periodic  regressions  to  earlier  stages  of  civiliza- 
tion, a  phenomenon  Germany  has  been  pre-eminent  in 
staging.  But  it  might  also  be  a  metonymy  of  time  in  the 
waiting  room,  which  goes  nowhere  though  constandy 
dis/appearing. 


The  interest  of  the  work  for  us  consists  of  the  implementation  of  the  para- 
digm. Our  current  intention  is  to  mount  an  exhibition  of  the  proposed  earth 
work  in  BerUn;  to  create 
figure  7        offsite  a  model;  and  to 

report  on  an  event  that  may 

or  may  not  have  happened. 

Public  reaction  to  the  idea 

would  be  assessed;  it  is 

reasonable  to  suppose  that 

any  attempt  to  create  the  work  physically  would  encounter  extreme  opposition 

and  antagonism  But  conceptually,  how  would  the  work  fare?  It  would  enjoy 

another  circulation  in  the  social  imaginary,  all  the  more  enduring  as  a  memory 

site  for  not  having  existed. 


Dis/appearance:  waiting  room  #  2.  found  space,  photography,  postcards.  Wollongong  Art  Gallery  and 
environs.  1995.  The  negative  critique  of  a  "site-specific"  aesthetic  that  drew  a  picturesque  veil  over  another, 
no  less  fanciful,  ideology  that  of  real-estate  driven  economic  recovery,  was  balanced  by  the  evocation  of  an 
alternative  concept  of  locality:  "It  is  the  duplicating  of  folds  that  occupies  us.  the  increase  of  the  crease.  A 
territory  represents  a  history  of  unfolding:  but  what  mathematics  will  enable  us  to  fold  it  up  again?  Blots 
may  contain  within  them  the  genealogy  of  folds;  and  their  future  unfolding  may  reveal  that  what  we  took  to 
be  the  final  piece  of  the  jigsaw  is  only  an  elementary  fold."  Photograph:  Charles  Anderson 


13 


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Tlnnholdi  14 


Viewing  platform.  Potsdamerplatz, 
Berlin,  1994,  research  material  for 
Dis/appearance:  waiting  room  #5. 

Photograph:  Charles  Anderson. 


Thresholds  readers  may  wonder  about  the  provenance  of 
our  meditations,  even  wonder  why  two  more-or-less  resi- 
dent Melbourne  artists  are  focused  on  a  trauma  "so  far 
away."  That  could  be  part  of  it:  the  persistent  myth  of 
Australia  as  atopia,  placelessly  outside  history,  which  serves 
neo-colonialist  interests  as  efficiently  now  as  it  did  two 
hundred  years  ago.  One  reaction  to  what  might  be  called 
the  institutionally  endemic  terra  nihilism  that  made,  and 
continues  to  make,  Australia's  colonization  possible  (as  it 
made  Schliemann's  ransack  of  "Troy"  possible)  is  an  exag- 
gerated localism.  But  the  sentimentality  of  site-specificity 
which  the  latter  position  produces  is  no  less  projective. 
Our  alternative  position  is  to  assert  the  historical  and  envi- 
ronmental fact  of  rates  of  exchange,  and  what  might  follow 
from  that — different  practices  for  creating  interest,  less 
appropriative  and  progressive  forms  of  translation. 


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Present  and  Futures 

Architecture  in  Cities 

Ignasi  de  Sola-Morales 


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That  architecture  is  one  and  the  same 
substance  as  the  city  is  beyond  ques- 
tion. That  the  city  is  one  single  piece  of 
architecture,  an  idea  put  forward  by 
Leon  Battista  Alberti,  is  a  more  prob- 
lematic assertion.  For  Alberti  the  city 
was  conceived  as  one  great  architecture 
where  every  individual  instance  of 
architecture  within  it  could  be 
conversely  understood  as  a  city  in 
miniature.  The  hypothesis  I  put 
forward  here  is  rather  more  modest. 

Today  more  than  ever  the  basic 
constituent  parts  of  urban  life  tend  to 
fall  completely  outside  the  professional 
work  of  the  architect.  The  city  is  more 
than  its  buildings  and  architecture. 
Traditional  architectural  instruments 
of  analysis  scarcely  engage  or  have  the 
capacity  to  respond  to  these 
constituent  parts  of  the  life  of  the 
metropolis — transportation  networks, 
highways,  spaces  reserved  for  the  logis- 
tics of  distribution,  protected  natural 
areas,  virtual  spaces  for  communica- 
tion and  entertainment. 


The  current  urban  condition,  charac- 
terized by  the  diffuse  but  highly  inter- 
connected megalopolis  which  lean 
Gottman  spoke  about  as  long  ago  as 
the  1960s  as  well  as  the  global  cities 
which  Saskia  Sassen  speaks  of  now, 
requires  an  entirely  new  approach 
fi-om  architects.  This  is  true  of  both 
classical  and  modernist  attempts  to 
rethink  the  relation  between  architec- 
ture and  the  city.  The  new  and  radical 
nature  of  the  urban  condition  of  the 
last  thirty  years  has  been  pointed  out 
by  Peter  Hall,  who  writes  that  explo- 
sive and  vertiginous  urban  growth  is 
no  longer  occurring  exclusively  in  the 
developed  world.  In  an  equally  power- 
ful way  it  is  happening  in  the  underde- 
veloped and  developing  countries  with 
startling  speed. 

My  opinion  is  that  the  features  and  the 
processes  that  belong  to  this  new 
urban  world  are  too  obvious  for  us  to 
turn  a  blind  eye  and  deny  them  a  city 
charter  of  their  own.  These  are  tech- 
niques and  processes  that  already  exist. 


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that  we  currently  operate  with — blind, 
fragmented  practices  if  you  like — 
devoid  of  self-awareness  or  any  critical 
process,  but  practices  by  which  life  in 
modern  cities  is  organized. 

Experts  who  are  not  trained  as  archi- 
tects are  the  ones  who  control  the 
development  of  techniques  relevant  to 
contemporary  urban  design.  To  these 
experts  the  following  are  poorly  under- 
stood by  the  architect:  motor  ways, 
airports,  integrated  transport  systems, 
interchanges,  shopping  centers,  theme 
parks,  massive  leisure  areas,  tourist 
areas,  self-built  residential  areas,  mobile 
homes,  and  homes  for  the  non-tradi- 
tional family.  The  demands  of  ideology 
and  mass  consumption  drive  the  reno- 
vation and  preservation  of  "heritage" 
places,  parks,  and  obsolete  pre-indus- 


trial  spaces.  The  media  then  makes 
multiple  and  imaginary  replicas  of  this 
milieu,  creating  and  recreating  virtual 
realities  no  less  Uved  in  than  the  physi- 
cal realities  of  the  big  city.  In  many 
cases  these  systems  and  phenomena  are 
foreign  if  not  hostile  to  the  entrenched 
ways  of  thinking  and  acting  common 
to  architects. 

At  this  point  1  would  like  to  suggest 
five  platforms,  after  the  manner  of  the 
thousand  plateaus  of  which  Deleuze 
and  Guattari  speak,  from  which  to  see, 
understand,  problematize  and  evaluate 
the  basic  constituent  parts  of  contem- 
porary urban  conditions.  With  an  eye 
and  an  ear  towards  processes  natural 
and  artificial,  I  am  attempting  to  clas- 
sify the  many-faceted  infrastructure  of 
the  megalopolis. 

mutation 

The  term  mutation  is  intended  to 
characterize  the  type  of  change  that 
now  occurs  in  cities.  A  random  change 
in  the  genetic  material  of  the  cell 
produces  alterations  in  one  or  more 
hereditary  characteristics,  bringing 
about  a  break  in  the  inheriting  mecha- 
nisms: a  mutation  has  been  produced 
which  is  a  substantial  alteration  that 
will  affect  both  the  morphology  and  the 
physiology  not  only  of  the  cell  or  the 
organ,  but  of  the  organism  as  a  whole. 

What  we  are  increasingly  experiencing 
in  the  city  are  processes  of  sudden 
mutation,  not  compliant  with  the 
notion  of  evolutionary  transformation 


and  not  conforming  to  a  logical 
process  leading  from  planning  to 
building.  Examples  include  the  plan 
for  the  reconstruction  of  the  center  of 
Beirut,  the  expansion  of  the  Pudong 
area  of  Shanghai,  the  reunification  of 
Berlin,  the  renovation  of  the  center  of 
Bucharest,  and  the  patterns  of  grovrth 
in  Mexico  City,  Brasilia  and  ledda. 
These  are  phenomena  where  neither 
organicist-evolutionist  criteria  nor  the 
causal  logic  of  the  rationalist  model 
can  be  applied.  When  such  high  capac- 
ity for  accumulating  massive  develop- 
ment capital  and  for  rapid  destruction 
and  rebuilding  exists,  thousands  of 
acres  of  existing  urban  fabric  and 
greenfield  spaces  will  suffer  mutations. 


Compared  to  the  logic  of  gradual 
evolution,  these  mutations  seem 
sudden  and  unpredictable. 

Designing  for  mutation,  entering  into 
its  centrifugal  energy,  requires  juggling 
a  host  of  variables  that  cannot  be 
controlled  except  with  efficient 
management  instruments.  The  plat- 
form of  mutation  indicates  the  neces- 
sity for  open,  interactive  morphologies 
in  which  minimum  criteria  are  the 
only  laws  organizing  the  rapid 
processes  by  which  things  move  from 
one  urban  stage  to  another. 

flow 

The  term  flow  is  the  second  platform. 
This  concept  refers  to  a  shift  in  under- 
standing movement  in  the  city  that 
took  place  between  the  CIAM  Athens 
Charter  in  1933  and  Team  X  in  the 
1950s.  This  critique  is  exemplified  by 
Kahn's  project  for  Philadelphia  and  the 
Smithsons'  proposals  for  Berlin.  Flow 
characterizes  the  shape  and  form  of 
motion:  networks,  meshes,  conduits, 
and  staccato  movements  are  recurring 
figures  in  projects  about  flow.  Motion 
conceived  in  terms  of  flow  signifies  a 
break  from  the  Einsteinian  space-time 
used  by  the  architectural  avant  garde  of 
the  early  Modern  Movement.  At  the 
fin-de-siede  architecture  is  moving 
towards  the  fundamental  objective  of 
facilitating  traffic  flow  and  interchange 
between  different  networks.  This  is  so 
not  only  in  the  conventional  field  of 
transport — railway  stations,  ports  and 


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airports — but  also  in  places  where 
there  is  an  intersection  of  distribution 
modes.  Architecture  has  to  be  able  to 
plastically  reconfigure  its  shape  to  be 
receptive  to  all  types  and  forms  of 
interchange. 

habitation 

A  third  platform  concerns  the  form 
that  dwellings  or  residences  take.  I 
propose  calling  this  habitation.  In 
recent  years  it  has  often  been  said  that 
architecture  has  forsaken  the  problem 
of  the  dwelling.  In  the  exhibition  and 
catalogue  entitled  Iiitenmtional  Prop- 
erty, Yago  Conde  and  Bea  Goller 
concluded  that  the  commodity  of 
housing  is  designed  and  controlled 
predominantly  by  free  market  forces. 
The  similarity  between  housing 
models  from  various  distant  parts  of 
the  world  points  to  the  legitimacy  of 
this  view.  This  is  so  despite  the  para- 
doxical fact  that  these  markets  have 
been  cultivated  with  extreme  attention 
to  local  and  regional  formal  reper- 
toires. The  result  is  an  injection  of  bits 


of  pseudo-identity  into  plans  that 
nevertheless  remain  homogenous. 

The  most  innovative,  valuable,  and 
avant-garde  production  of  new 
dwellings,  on  the  other  hand,  are  found 
in  unique,  one-off  types  of  housing 
experimentation  that  are  outside  of,  or 
at  least  tangent  to,  the  great  mass 
produced  by  the  uniform  housing 
market.  Homes  for  immigrants,  for  a 
single  individual,  for  transitory  situa- 
tions, for  the  homeless,  the  artist's 
home,  and  the  architect's  own  home 
are  today's  favored  testing  ground  for 
experimentation.  But  in  underdevel- 
oped and  developing  countries  the 
problem  of  the  dwelling  remains  a 
centrally  important  social  and  political 
problem.  Intractable  urban  habitation 
problems  in  these  contexts  are  usually 
tackled  with  a  poverty  of  conceptual 
thinking.  I  see  this  as  a  sign  of  the  diffi- 
culty of  these  innovative  ideas  to  be 
creatively  applied  to  the  problem  of 
urban  housing. 


container 

A  fourth  area  of  attention  concerns  the 
form  that  exchange  takes.  For  this  I 
suggest  the  term  container.  In 
consumer  societies  productive  activity 
depends  intrinsically  on  the  means  of 
exchange.  Contact  with  consumer 
goods  requires  a  theater  in  which  the 
market  "performance"  can  be  acted 
out.  What  are  they  like,  these  envelopes 
in  which  the  ritual  of  consumption 
takes  place,  where  the  distribution  of 


desired  gifts  finds  its  worshippers 
ready  to  sacrifice  portions  of  their 
accumulated  wealth? 

Containers  are  not  always  public,  and 
not  exactly  private.  A  museum,  a 
stadium,  a  shopping  mall,  an  opera 
house,  an  entertainment  theme  park, 
an  historical  buUding  protected  so  it 
can  be  visited,  a  tourist  attraction — all 
these  are  containers.  They  are  not 
transparent,  they  are  closed-in.  The 
"generalized  separation"  that  Guy 
Debord  spoke  of  in  Society  of  the  Spec- 
tacle is  the  basic  premise  that  makes 
containers  functionally  adequate  to 
their  task. 


Physical  separation  from  reality  is 
required  to  create  an  obvious  perfor- 
mance or  show  area,  to  deny  perme- 
ability and  transparency,  and  to 
produce  the  maximum  artificiality  in 
climate,  organization,  and  control.  The 
space  is  always  artificial,  interiorized 
even  in  the  open  air.  Produced  by 
multiple,  variable,  ephemeral  means,  it 
is  always  enclosed  by  the  rigid  wrapper 
of  the  container.  The  architectural 
problem  posed  by  the  demand  that 
containment  include  enclosure  as  well 
as  programmatic  diversity  and  super- 
imposition  of  formal  ideas  is  at  once 
cultural  and  technical. 


terrain  vague 

The  last  of  the  proposed  platforms 
refers  to  ambiguous  places  where  the 
experience  of  historical  time  in  the  city 
can  be  felt  and  which  enjoy  a  love/hate 
relationship  with  contemporary  art, 
cinema  and  photography;  these  sites  I 
refer  to  by  the  French  term  terrain 
vague.  The  term  may  be  translated  as 
wasteland  in  English  but  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  capture  in  a  single  English  word 
or  phrase  the  richness  of  the  meanings 
of  the  French  terrain  vague. 

In  French,  the  term  terrain  has  a  more 
urban  quality  than  in  English  where,  if 
I  am  not  mistaken,  the  word  terrain 
has  evolved  towards  uses  in  agriculture 


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has  evolved  towards  uses  in  agriculture 
and  geology.  Terrain  in  French  refers 
both  to  defined  lots  of  land,  ready  for 
building,  as  well  as  to  larger  areas  of 
territory  in  a  potentially  exploitable, 
expectant  state.  The  term  vague  has 
two  Latin  roots,  vacuus  and  vagus, 
which  come  together  in  the  French 
usage.  The  first  root  vacuus  gives  us  the 
sense  of  vacant,  which  is  to  say  empty, 
unoccupied,  and  yet  also  free,  avail- 
able, not  engaged.  The  second  root 
vagus  gives  us  the  sense  of  vague  in 
English,  which  means  undetermined, 
imprecise,  uncertain. 

The  paradox  that  is  produced  in  the 
message  we  receive  from  these  indefi- 
nite and  uncertain  terrain  vague  spaces 
is  not  necessarily  a  purely  negative 
one.  The  condition  of  these  spaces  is 
internal  to  the  city  yet  at  the  same  time 
external  to  its  everyday  use.  In  these 
apparently  forgotten  places,  the 
memory  of  the  past  seems  to  dominate 
the  present.  These  are  obsolete  places 
in  which  only  a  few  residual  values 


seem  to  survive  despite  their  total 
disaffection  from  the  activity  of  the 
city.  They  are  areas  where  it  can  be  said 
that  the  city  is  no  longer.  From  the 
viewpoint  of  the  real  estate  market 
they  are  marginal  places,  industrial 
areas,  ports,  unsafe  residential  neigh- 
borhoods, contaminated  places.  Our 
cities  abound  with  this  type  of  terri- 
tory, abandoned  by  industry,  by  the 
railways,  by  the  ports.  These  are  areas 
abandoned  as  a  result  of  violence,  of 
the  receding  of  residential  or  commer- 
cial populations,  the  deterioration  of 
buildings.  These  areas  are  former 
dumps,  gravel  pits  and  quarries.  They 
are  under-utilized  areas  between  two 
motor  ways,  along  the  edge  of  self- 
contained  housing  developments,  and 
of  restricted  access  for  theoretical 
reasons  of  security  and  protection. 

The  conventional  approach  to  the 
architectural  and  urban  design  of  these 
places  is  to  seek,  by  means  of  new 
projects  and  investment,  to  reintegrate 
these  spaces  or  buildings  into  the 
productive  urban  fabric  of  the  synco- 
pated, busy,  efficient  city.  But  such 
operations  of  urban  renewal  draw 
strong  negative  reactions  fi^om  sensitive 
people.  Artists,  photographers,  local 
residents  and  others  who  appreciate  the 
role  of  the  ambiguous  terrain  vague  feel 
profoundly  put  out  by  development 
there.  They  are  disenchanted  with  the 
uptight,  non-stop  urge  towards  devel- 
opment of  the  city.  The  terrain  vague 


spaces  are  in  fact  the  ideal  places  mark- 
ing and  maintaining  the  city's  identity, 
the  confluence  of  the  past  and  the 
present,  and  the  last  uncontrolled 
spaces  in  which  to  freely  act. 

These  five  proposed  cultural  categories 
through  which  to  understand  a  new 
relationships  between  architecture  and 
the  massive  metropolitan  areas  of  the 
present  began  with  the  notion  of 
mutation  and  ended  with  that  of 
terrain  vague,  which  constitutes  its 
counterpoint,  the  reverse  of  the  metro- 
politan coin.  This  is  not  paradoxical. 
Only  equal  attention  to  values  of  inno- 
vation on  the  one  hand  and  memory 
and  absence  on  the  other  will  enliven 
our  confidence  in  a  complex,  plural 
urban  way  of  life.  The  role  of  art 
(including  architecture),  Deleuze  has 
written,  "is  not  that  of  producing  self- 
conscious  objects  for  their  own  sake, 
but  rather  of  becoming  the  reveahng 
force  that  will  make  manifest  multi- 
plicity and  contingency." 


Tloresholds  14 


Nostalgia  Versus  Nihilism  in  the  Post- 
Industrial  Suburban  Context. 


This  thesis  project  advo- 
cates, to  the  Cn]th  degree, 
both  and  yet  neither  of  the 
two  positions.  It  is  neither 
nostalgically  yearning  for 
an  irretrievable  past  nor 
reveling  in  apocalyptic  lyri- 
cism about  the  present.  It 
offers  neither  "correction" 
nor  "commentary."  Rather  it 
attempts  to  approach  the 
suburban  condition  by 
accepting  its  reality,  inclu- 
sive of  all  positive  and 
negative  aspects,  and 
transgress  that  reality  by 
questioning  the  "rules" 
which  give  rise  to  it. 

The  formal  design  proposal, 
as  is  the  case  in  any 
design,  may  be  debated. 
And  while  it  is  thought  to 
raise  a  number  of  relevant 
issues  concerning 
construction  and  articula- 


tion in  the  context  of  the 
suburban  strip,  its  evalua- 
tion and  potential  are  more 
appropriately  understood  at 
the  conceptual  level.  That  is 
to  say,  the  project  is  about 
more  than  the  engagement 
of  two  walls  at  the  high- 
way's edge,  it  is  about  the 
implications  of  and  sugges- 
tions made  by  their  mere 
presence.  Effectively,  they 
suggest  that  the  rationale  of 
the  suburban  strip  land- 
scape can  be  both  accepted 
and  challenged,  that  its 
ideologies  can  be  trans- 
gressed, and  that  there  is 
potential  for  architecture  in 
"non-place." 


Consolidated  Periphery 

Commercial  and  Highway  Interchange 
Master's  thesis 

Christine  McGrath 


Thresholds  14 


3  consumption  is  innerently  human,  social 
interaction  is  inherently  human,  consumption 
is  often  a  social  engagement. 


o 


30 


I    i 


development  by  2006. 

The  site,  as  a  highway  inter- 
change, does  not  exist.  By  1998.  it 
will.  By  2000.  it  will  have  trans- 
formed itself  from  what  it  was  in 
1998.  And  by  2006.  its  present 
1996  condition  will  no  longer  be 
legible.  To  address  the  fact  that 
the  site  is  still  to  some  degree  a 
non-site,  or  hypothetical  site,  this 
study  projects  a  potential  evolu- 
tion for  the  proceeding  decade. 
Development,  rather  than  emerg- 
ing as  independent  privatized 
dispersed  capsules  might  be 
amalgamated  and  compressed 
into  a  singular  entity,  tied  to,  rather 
than  distanced  from,  the  infra- 
structural  network  of  the  highway. 

This  is  noteworthy  at  four  levels. 
First,  it  addresses  issues  of 
dispersion  and  land  consumption 
by  grafting  the  suburban  land- 
scape and  its  constituent  pieces 
into  a  single  amalgamation  and 
inserting  them  into  the  presumed 
"leftover"  space  of  highway  infra- 
structure. This  obviates  the 
current  lack  of  integration 
between  architectural  and  infra- 
structural  endeavors  in  the  subur- 
ban context.  Second,  its  "insertion 
point",  that  being  entirely  within 
the  proposed  highway  "right  of 
way",  calls  into  question  basic 
understandings  of  ownership, 
and  more  pointedly,  issues  of 


privatization.  As  the  land  encom- 
passed by  the  highway  consti- 
tutes publicly  held  land  owned  by 
the  state,  the  location  of  commer- 
cial entities  within  this  realm  rele- 
gates ideologies  of  private 
enterprise  to  a  unique  platform. 
Third,  at  a  larger  urban  scale,  and 
at  the  scale  of  the  highway,  the 
scheme  implicates  architecture  as 
a  physical  and  psychological 
interface  between  highway  and 
town,  between  line  and  place. 
Other  "polar  relationships"  thus 
considered  in  the  initial  phases  of 
the  design  include:  movement/ 
stasis,  transience/  permanence, 
public  investment/capital  gain, 
vehicle/individual,  day/night. 


front/back,  top/bottom,  and 
plan/section.  I  make  the  sugges- 
tion that  adjunct  elements  of 
infrastructure  might  nave  a  more 
supple  relationship  with  architec- 
ture, such  that  the  two  might 
begin  to  mutually  inform  and  limit 
the  other's  growth.  In  this  case,  a 
singular  gesture  made  by  two 
wall  elements  is  intended  to 
absorb  most  of  the  functions 
necessitated  by  both  the  highway 
and  Its  associated  commercial 
presence.  The  building  can  be 
read  as  an  earth  berm.  It  is  the 
abatement  wall.  It  is  the  strip 
mall,  the  parking  lot,  the  roadway, 
and  the  billboard. 


IR 


The  building  was  designed  to  be 
roughly  symmetrical  about  a  diago- 
nal axis  In  order  that  one  would 
read  Its  ends  as  Inverted  opposltes 
of  one  another.  The  strategic  benefit 
of  doing  this  was  that  It  allowed  the 
building  to  carry  equal  weight  at 
both  the  ground  plane  and  at  the 
roof.  Eliminating  hierarchy,  or  verti- 
cal stratification,  was  critical  in 
order  to  make  multi-story  building 
an  economically  viable  design  solu- 
tion. The  access  system  allows  one 
to  either  enter  at  the  roof  and 
traverse  the  building  descending 
toward  the  ground  plane  or  to  enter 
at  the  ground  plane  and  ascend 
upward.  A  third  access  addresses 
the  highway  traveller-the  transient 
being,  wanting  not  to  stay,  but  only 
pause,  momentarily  Acting  much  as 
a  concourse  In  an  airport,  this  sliver 
of  space,  running  from  the  north- 
bound exit  ramp,  piercing  through 
the  center  of  building,  and  re- 
emerging  at  the  corresponding 
northbound  entrance  ramp,  Is  the 
epitome  of  a  fixated  desire  for  effi- 
ciency It  is  here,  literally  in  this  fast 
lane,  where  one  encounters  those 
spaces  most  rapidly  consumed— the 
gas  station,  the  dry  cleaner,  the 
automatic  teller  machine,  the  drive- 
thru,  the  coffee  joint. 


program. 

The  distribution  of  program  also 
follows  an  Inversely  reciprocal 
conception,  a  field  of  interspersed 
events  activating  the  circulation 
spine  which  conjoins  them. 
Roughly  the  programmatic 
volumes  are  concentrated  verti- 
cally about  the  building's  middle 
and  presumed  most  active  level- 
that  of  the  concourse,  and  hori- 
zontally about  its  center-most 
likely  the  location  of  the  so-called 
anchor  stores-compressing  as 
much  program  as  possible  within 
this  sector,  in  an  effort  to 
increase  the  likelihood  of  pedes- 
trian activity  in  these  zones.  The 
spatial  programming  purposefully 
avoided  a  deterministic  attitude, 
for  capitalism  will  run  its  own 
course.  The  building  sections 
demonstrate  the  purposeful  impli- 
cations of  this  fundamental 
texturing  of  program.  In  spite  of 
any  multitude  of  conditions  that 
may  occur  along  the  building's 
length,  these  conditions  are 
always  relative  to  the  condition  of 
the  wall.  It  is  the  common 
denominator,  the  unifier,  the 
prevailing  organizational  element 
for  the  entire  building. 


!    TTi 


r 


31 


TIjirshollis  14 


BfMY  MARTrN 


fvl 


32 


^\ 


bacardi,  vw,  and  the  gap. 

Signage.  In  light  of  most  common 
applications,  excluding  more  recent 
projects  by  contemporary  European 
and  Japanese  architects,  signage  has 
held  the  deplorable  status  in  architec- 
ture of  "applique."  While  the  Modernist 
aesthetic  has  little  room  for  non- 
Corbusian  extras  and  the  postmodern 
revels  in  symbols,  it  remams  that  a 
project  such  as  this  must  address  the 
issue  of  signs.  The  necessity  of 
signage  in  a  retail/commercial  build- 
ing IS  not  only  accepted,  it  is  appropri- 
ated, to  the  degree  that  is  no  longer 
viewed  as  additive  to  the  architecture, 
but  a  part  of  it-neither  duck  nor 
decorated  shed. 

Effectively  two  strategies  deal  with 
signage-one  operating  at  the  level  of 
the  highway  and  the  other  at  the  level 
of  the  individual  building  components. 
From  the  highway,  the  building  is  two 
walls-program  and  the  advertise- 
ments for  that  program.  On  the  media 
wall,  advertisements  directed  toward 
the  highway  traveller  move  at  his/her 
speed.  28.8  seconds  is  both  the  length 
of  the  building  and  the  duration  of  a 
typical  commercial.  Signage  is  used  to 
forge  an  indelible  inextricable  relation- 
ship between  two  walls.  One  is. three- 
dimensional  space:  one  is  the 
compressed  two  dimensional  repre- 
sentation of  that  space.  One  is  in 
motion,  the  other  is  static. 


EATRES 


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£  »    b\ 


7  the  seemingly  chaotic  formlessness  of 
"exopohs"  may  not  be  chaotic  or  formless 
at  all — it  may  simply  have  an  order,  a 
form,  a  potential  we  fail  to  see. 


Tlircsholds  14 


Entropy  and  Surfaceness 

Master's  thesis 

James  K.  Casper 


34 


Introduction 

The  layer  of  the  Earth's  atmosphere  which  contains  clouds  and  weather  systems  is  a  thin 
thermoregulatory  surface;  it  maintains  an  exact  energy  budget  between  the  Earth  and  the 
Sun.  Recent  work  in  theoretical  physics  is  aimed  at  these  types  of  dynamic  systems.  Key  to 

a  system  such  as  the  atmosphere  is  the  constant  yet  fluc- 
tuating input  of  energy  which  forces  the  system  into  a 
state  distant  from  its  thermodynamic  equilibrium. 
Certain  physical  systems,  when  past  this  point  begin  to 
organize  themselves  into  dynamic  structures  which  work 
to  dissipate  the  incoming  flux.  As  a  result,  they  are 
decreasing  system  entropy,  a  characteristic  previously 
only  assigned  to  life  or  living  matter.  The  line  between 
living  and  inert  systems  has  expanded  to  a  field  wide 
enough  to  work  within. 

Concurrently,  developments  in  the  engineering  of  so- 
called  intelligent  materials  seek  to  invest  material  or  inert 
matter  with  characteristics  or  behaviors  of  life.  Scientists 
intend  the  materials  to  sense,  process  and  respond  to 
environmental  forces  in  a  dynamic  bio-mimetic  manner 
through  engineering  at  the  molecular  scale. 

This  thesis  project  uses  intelligent  materials  in  the 
conte.xt  of  a  built  application.  Customarily,  physical  or 
inert  systems  (such  as  a  building)  do  not  carry  the  trait 
assigned  exclusively  to  life  or  the  emergence  of  lite — the 
reversal  of  entropy.  This  research  investigates  the  possibil- 
ity of  employing  such  traits  in  building. 

The  proposed  built  system  becomes  a  metallic  alloy 
atmosphere  on  the  thin  surface  boundary  of  a  building. 
Working  also  to  dissipate  an  influx  of  solar  energy,  the 
building's  surface  will  develop  'weather  systems',  dynamic 
and  cyclonic,  moving  across  and  around  the  metallic 
skin.  Perturbations  from  the  imprints  of  the  cloiids  and  shadows  will  seed  the  system, 
throwing  it  into  flux  as  it  seeks  to  feather  out  the  disturbances  and  settle  back  into  puls- 
ing rhythms  and  patterns.  Space,  scale,  time,  orientation,  and  a  metaphorical  'emergence 
of  life'  are  re-introduced  to  building,  a  customarily  inert  or  inanimate  system. 


"In  the  near  future,  border  lines  of  mental  cfianges  in  ways  which  environmental  changes  toward  the 
the  software  field  and  the  material  maximize  their  function  Intelli-  optimum  conditions  and  manifest 
region    will    overlap    and    finally        gent  materials  may  be  defined  as        their  functions   according   to  the 


merge  together  completely  This 
situation  is  found  in  vanous  aspects 
of  life  including  human  being 
The  conceptual  background  of 
intelligent  materials  is  a  combina- 
tion of  advanced  aspects  of  materi- 
als science  and  computer 
engineering  which  seeks  to  create 
composite  materials  systems  which 
can  sense  and  respond  to  environ- 


the   materials  which    respond   to        changes." 


je 


-TTakagi  in  his  introduction  to  the 
"Proceedings  of  the  First  International 
Conference  on  Intelligent  Materials" 


It  is  only  recently  that  science  has  begun  to  approach  certain  specific  'functions'  of 
the  atmosphere.  Studies  directed  at  the  consequences  of  ozone  depletion  have 
begun  to  chronicle  the  role  of  weather  formation  in  relation  to  the  earth's  so-called 
'energy  budget'. 

The  earth's  atmosphere  acts  as  a  thermoregulatory  'surface'  between  incoming  solar 
radiation  and  the  crust.  A  combination  of  thermal  convection  and  rotation, 
vyeather  systems  develop  energy  fluxing  from  the  equator  to  the  poles  and  back 
into  space.  These  rhythms  leave  unmistakable  physical  and  psychological  imprints 
on  the  life  contained  within  as  useful  registration  marks  on  the  earth  for  orienta- 
tion, scale,  space  and  time.  All  aspects  of  life  are  affected  by,  maintained  by,  and 
generated  in  the  process. 


I^^^^l 

Thresholds  14 

^IB" 

I^B 

[ppilipti    1  1 '  "'"'^^'^'^IS 

m-' 


m. 


•.:"••        .ri?<a^ 


site.Utah.37  degrees  latitude  .109  degrees  longitude, 
blackmesa.fluid  surface.energy. 


A  hard,  ore-like  crust,  brittle,  obdurate  and  subtly 
shifting.  Fastened  between  the  atmosphere  and  the 
mantle,  Black  Mesa  is  a  literal  material  boundary 
between  fluid  systems  and  their  energy.  Black  Mesa  is 
a  thin  surface  of  shifting  entropy;  a  phase  interface;  a 
non-material  singular  surface  bearing  surface  mass, 
momentum,  energy  and  entropy. 

survey  maps.scale.length.iteration. 

In  plan,  the  survey  lines  on  the  USGS  maps  of  Black 
Mesa  betray  formal  circumstances  of  elevation  and 
space.  The  lines  tend  to  reverberate  around  changing 
landscape  intensifying  with  greater  quantity  and 
shorter  length.  This  exercise  reads  those  lines,  then 
reiterates  them  in  multiple  scaling  processes. 


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BPVV^^.^*»^  -rf? 

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r,-nr       -    ---      - 

1:     .11 

Nitinol,  a  shape  memory  alloy  (SMA] 

Within  a  system  maintained  far  from  equilibrium, 
shape  memory  alloys,  SMAs,  as  'dissipative  media,' 
can  be  predictably  'activated'  at  any  one  of  many 
specified  moments  of  change  in  the  environment. 
Nitinol  is  a  material  which  can  be  precisely  adjusted 
to  desired  specifications  or  transition  temperature  of 
force.  Importantly,  Nitinol  has  molecular  dynamics 
very  simUar  to  that  of  water.  Below  its  transition 
temperature,  it  can  be  stretched  or  elongated.  Above 
the  transition  temperature,  it  undergoes  a  radical 
change  to  a  different  molecular  structure.  The  transi- 
tion temperature  can  be  adjusted  to  activate  at  any 
specified  change  in  the  environmental  temperature. 


TInrsbollis  14 


38 


A  building  panel  system  could  be  open  or  closed 
when  coupled  to  an  SMA  actuator.  When  assembled 
in  an  array,  the  entire  system  could  begin  to  adjust  its 
'albedo  forcing'  by  working  as  a  system  simulating 
thermodynamic  of  fluid  system  almost  exactiy  the 
way  an  actual  atmospheric  system  would.  The  'rule' 
for  the  system  could  be  adjusted  to  the  particular  site 
climate.  In  the  initial  development,  however,  it  may  be 
better  to  link  the  panels  to  a  photovoltaic  cell  which 
would  then  power  the  SMA.  Nitinol  has  the  power  to 
produce  a  great  amount  of  force  with  a  small  charge. 
An  electrical  connection  between  neighboring  panels 
allows  each  to  read  the  energy  level  of  their  nearest 
neighbors  and  adjust  according  to  the  rule. 

Initially  it  might  seem  that  there  would  be  no  reason 
for  the  panels  to  begin  to  operate  individually,  that 
they  might  each  act  in  the  same  way,  because  it  is  the 
same  sun  striking  the  surface  of  the  system.  However, 
more  local  'seeding'  could  occur  with  a  passing  cloud 
or  a  shadow.  This  seeding  effect  would  activate  the 
system  into  a  complex  behavior,  growing  and  dissi- 
pating the  perturbation  until  the  system  again  returns 
to  its  operating  parameter.  The  system  should  now 
retain  its  operating  parameter  by  being  in  constant 
dynamic  motion.  It  will  have  evolved  into  a  'sea'  or 
atmosphere,  growing  patterns  and  structures  which 
dynamically  evolve,  move,  emerge  and  decay. 


A  daily  cycle  of  reactions. 

At  night  the  array  will  go  to  sleep,  and  the  system  will 
become  transparent.  In  the  morning  it  arises,  identifying 
the  sun,  its  muscles  cold  and  inflexible,  but  straining  to 
move.  As  the  system  warms,  it  loosens  up,  the  sun  moves 
behind  a  tree  and  it  yawns  slowly  into  motion.  The 
shadow  of  the  trees  is  feathered  repeated  into  a  field  of 
rippling  grids.  Slowly  at  first,  then  increasing  in  scale.  As 
the  sun  passes  the  corner,  the  south  facade  swings  into 
motion  while  the  east  surface  relaxes  back  into  a  subtle 
shimmering  field.  More  motile  now,  the  systems  fever- 
ishly work  to  dissipate  the  sun.  Systems  develop,  spiral, 
vortex,  hurhng  across  the  array's  face  and  disappearing 
into  infinity  or  off  the  side  of  the  face.  Inside  the  light 
constant,  yet  active.  The  sun  moves  to  high  noon  and  is 
strong.  The  system  shelters,  slow  again  and  almost 
opaque  and  solid.  All  interior  light  is  now  reflected  from 
the  north,  east  and  west.  The  western  sun  is  hot  and  the 
west  wall  closes  quickly  to  a  steel  wall,  obdurate  and 
unyielding.  The  muscles  are  tight  and  hold  fast  against 
the  radiation.  Finally,  as  the  sun  falls  quickly  processes 
reverse  and  the  sunset  is  within  the  atmosphere  of  the 
systems.  Color,  light,  heat,  and  steel  fall  back  to  sleep. 
Tomorrow  there  might  be  a  thunderstorm. 

The  building  envelope  is  a  microcosm  of  our  atmos- 
phere and  building  scale  of  its  entailed  dynamics.  Fenes- 
tration becomes  temporal  and  omni-spatial. 
Orientation  is  etched  on  the  surface  like  sun  on  skin, 
unconsciously  knowable.  Boundary  and  enclosure  are 
elusive,  non-reducible,  non-reproducible  and  never  the 
same  twice.  The  metallic  skin  is  a  snowflake,  a  storm,  an 
ocean,  an  organism. 


"Let  us  suppose,  then,  that  all 
organic  instincts  are  conservative, 
are  acquired  historically  and  tend 
towards  the  restoration  of  an  earlier 
state  of  things.  It  follows  that  the 
phenomena  of  organic  develop- 
ment must  be  attributed  to  external 
disturbing  and  diverting  influences. 
The  elementary  living  entity  would 
from  its  very  beginning  have  had 
no  wish  to  change;  if  conditions 


j.ie'Sr.'.'  r... !  ; 


■,  I    .  .'  -VJ 


■'■::*i:.::jiv..j"-i-:>'**^''!5^ 


iirTi  1  !> 


■ff-il  IV   !l  ' 


remained  the  same;  it  would  do  no 
more  than  constantly  repeat  the 
same  course  of  life.  In  the  last 
resort,  what  has  left  its  mark  on  the 
development  of  organisms  must  be 
the  history  of  the  earth  we  live  in 
and  its  relation  to  the  sun.  Every 
modification  which  is  thus  imposed 
upon  the  course  of  the  organism's 
life  is  accepted  by  the  conservative 
organic  instincts  and  stored  up  for 
further  repetition  Those  instincts 
are  therefore  bound  to  give  a 
deceptive  appearance  of  being 
forces  tending  towards  change  and 
progress,  whilst  in  fact  they  are 
merely  seeking  to  reach  an  ancient 
by  paths  alike  old  and  new." 

-Sigmund  Freud,  Beyond  the 
Pleasure  Principle 


'.fir''  iiasiu.! 


MiiififiMia  «■■«« 


39 


Thresholds  14 


Learning  Where  Not  to  Build 


a  conversation  with  Kristina  Hill 


Kristina  Hill  is  a  Planning  Professor  at  MIT.  Through  a 
combination  of  written  responses  to  questions  and  a  face  to 
face  discussion  of  the  issues  she  addresses  as  an  educator  and 
Landscape  Architect,  the  Thresholds  editors  compiled  the 
following  transcript,  taking  loosely  the  form  of  an  interview. 

Thresholds  editors  You  have  mentioned  previously  some  of  the 
attitudes  and  skills  you  hope  architects  and  planners  can  take  away 
from  an  education  in  Landscape  and  Ecology  In  the  courses  you 
teach  at  MIT-Site  &  Urban  Systems  Planning  and  Landscape  Ecol- 
ogy &  Urban  Development-you  have  described  the  primary  skills 
students  can  learn  as  those  related  to  identifying  innovative  spatial 
strategies,  which  you  see  as  the  root  of  design.  While  teaching  site 
planning  is  important  in  schools  of  architecture,  you  see  a  more 
crucial  need  to  instruct  "site  reading?"  What  is  "site  reading?" 

Kristina  Hill  I  do  think  "site  reading"  is  the  place  to  begin, 
not  site  planning.  But  if  you  don't  take  the  time  to  learn  a 
language,  you  can't  really  comprehend  texts  —  even  if  you 
can  read  the  words.  Most  of  what  can  be  taught  in  one  or 
two  courses  is  just  a  beginning  —  a  skeleton  for  really 
"reading"  sites.  The  act  of  interpreting  what  one  "reads"  is 
fundamentally  the  act  of  designing  —  so  I  don't  think  "site 
reading"  can  be  taught  effectively  outside  a  studio  context, 
where  students  could  apply  their  new  ability  to  "read."  I 
think  the  critical  things  architects  and  planners  need  to 
understand  about  sites  are  the  things  which  can  be 
diagrammed  spatially  and  temporally.  Once  the  character- 
istics of  a  site  or  landscape  are  diagrammed,  this  new 
representation  reflects  a  set  of  priorities.  Without  priori- 
ties, the  "text"  presented  by  any  site — however  small — is 
boundless;  there's  nowhere  to  start,  nowhere  to  stop,  and 
no  order  in  what  can  be  interpreted.  That's  why  I  come 
back  again  to  this  question  of  strategies  and  priorities. 
Without  them,  we  can't  associate  cultural  meaning  or  rela- 
tive value  with  the  spatial  structures  we  devise  for  the  site. 


A  lot  of  students  I  talk  to  from  architecture  have 
heard  about  systems  ecology  and  they've  seen  diagrams 
where  systems  cycle.  They're  familiar  with  a  kind  of  left- 
over from  1970s  systems  approach,  a  kind  of  ecology 
described  by  these  spaghetti  diagrams  of  flows,  and  boxes, 
and  systems.  But  this  has  no  spatial  dimension  to  it.  If  on 
the  other  hand,  you  look  at  landscape  ecology,  which  is  the 
sub-discipline  of  ecology  which  looks  at  the  interaction 
between  spatial  pattern  and  natural  process,  then  you  can 
begin  to  say  sure,  everything  is  connected  in  some  way, 
but,  things  are  not  all  connected  in  the  same  way.  In  land- 
scape ecology,  one  wetland  is  not  the  same  as  another;  all 
wetlands  are  not  "equal";  there  are  different  points  in  this 
system  that  emerge  as  unique  points — that  can  be 
diagrammed — where  things  can  be  done.  For  example;  to 
restore  an  urban  stream,  all  locations  along  that  stream  are 
not  "equally"  suitable.  Or,  if  we  want  to  improve  urban 
water  quality  while  we  develop  a  higher  density  architec- 
ture, we'll  have  to  look  strategically  as  to  where  are  the 
points  we  can  build  filtration  devices  into  the  higher 
density  urban  system. 

So  there  are  those  places  in  the  landscape  that  are  not 
the  same  as  other  places,  that  have  to  be  identified  through 
some  sort  of  assimilation  of  all  the  detail  out  there.  We  can 
identify  the  strategic  information  in  all  the  detailed  infor- 
mation, that's  site  reading.  The  value  of  teaching  how  to 
see  and  record  the  strategic  information  is  in  learning  how 


Thresholds  14 


42 


to  graphically  describe  what's  important  in  our  "readings" 
of  sites  and  landscapes. 

ed     It  is  fairly  common  for  architects  to  begin  with  the  given  site 
and  context  in  devising  spatial  layouts  for  their  built  forms.  In  fact, 
there  is  often  a  deep  reliance  or  even  a  dependence  on  this 
context.  How  do  you  see  that  site  reading  and  landscape  strategies 
could  be  different  from  this?  To  put  the  question  in  a  negative 
framework,  how  are  the  typical  ways  in  which  architects  examine 
context  limited  or  misleading' 

KH    A  lot  of  architects  see  the  site  they  are  presented  with 
as  either  a  blank  slate,  the  equivalent  of  a  white  sheet  of 
paper  they  can  do  anything  with,  or  they  see  elements  of  a 
romanticized  natural  virtue — maybe  a  stream,  a  grove  of 
old  trees,  or  a  visually  striking  rock  outcrop.  In  the  latter 
case,  the  designer's  impulse  is  often  to  put  the  building 
next  to  this  romanticized  element  of  the  site,  as  if  to  draw 
some  kind  of  power  from  it. 

If  you  look  at  Peter  Walker's  work  in  corporate  head- 
quarters buildings  you  see  this.  He'll  juxtapose  a  corporate 
building  with  a  meadow,  using  the  icon  of  the  prairie  in 
opposition  to  the  corporate.  But  saying  its  a  prairie  only 
three  acres  in  size  is  like  saying  you've  got  a  three  acre 
ocean.  You  can't  have  a  three  acre  prairie.  You  can  plant 
prairie  plants  in  three  acres,  but  the  concept  of  a  prairie  is 
a  much  larger  system;  its  regional. 

Understanding  the  site  as  part  of  a  larger  dynamic 
system  is  absolutely  critical  to  seeing  what  kinds  of  innova- 
tive spatial  strategies  might  make  sense.  This  incorporates 


the  reality  of  on-going  processes  which  tie  every  site  into  a 
larger  pattern  of  water  flows,  wildlife  movement,  and 
natural  disturbances  like  fire  or  windstorms.  And  yet  very 
few  architects  or  planners  visualize  these  dynamics  in  ways 
that  let  them  realistically  dimension  their  plans  for  the  site. 
They  may  hold  onto  the  concept  and  terminology  of 
dynamic  change,  but  very  few  learn  to  perceive  and  struc- 
ture a  specific,  relevant  material  reality  in  response  to  it. 
That  essentially  static  understanding  of  the  elements  of  a 
site  is  without  a  doubt  the  most  misleading  approach  any 
designer  can  adopt. 

Some  of  what  Bernard  Tschumi  is  doing  in  Pare  de 
LaVilette  is  critiqued  by  landscape  architects  this  way. 
Although  he  thought  of  the  park  as  different  systems — the 
gardens,  the  paths,  the  follies — and  overlaid  them,  the 
juxtapositions  themselves  are  supposed  to  be  these 
wonderful  accidents.  This  is  problematic  on  a  number  of 
fronts.  First,  juxtaposition  is  not  an  accident  in  the  real 
world.  The  accidental  juxtapositions  in  Tschumi's  design 
end  up  being  banal  to  most  people  because  they  don't  have 
any  meaning,  any  cultural  leverage.  Like  English  words 
without  any  grammar,  there's  no  art  to  it.  Secondly,  the 
idea  that  the  chaos  and  disorder  of  nature  are  juxtaposed 
with  the  systemic  sampling  of  the  follies  in  fact  isn't  some- 
thing that  you  experience.  There's  no  sense  of  the  surface 
once  Tschumi's  "layers"  are  combined.  Its  fine  if  you  enjoy 
his  drawings  of  it,  but  when  you  actually  build  those  places 
you  e.xperience  all  those  things  at  once.  Its  like  the  way  that 
the  layers  of  Photoshop  are,  together,  what  makes  the 
image.  All  the  layers  in  all  those  exploded  plans  are  what 
makes  the  image.  But  that's  not  what  you're  building  or 
what  you  see.  You're  not  building  the  three  dimensional 
chess  set  axonometric.  People  somehow  lose  the  sense  of 
that  in  the  stress  and  glory  of  a  design  competition. 

Thirdly,  the  naive  conception  of  nature  as  the  "disor- 
ganized" is  carried  in  those  accidents.  The  accidents  are 
supposed  to  be  the  chaotic,  and  this  is  where  nature 
"occurs."  Here  the  follies  are  a  grid,  like  random  samplings 
in  the  way  scientists  sometimes  sample  the  natural  world, 
and  the  natural  is  the  "disorganized."  On  the  intellectual 
level  the  idea  is  that  the  accidents  in  our  perception  allow 


us  to  see  things  that  we  otherwise  would  not  see;  the  sort 
of  "chaos"  of  the  natural  world.  That  may  work  as  an  intel- 
lectual idea  but  I  don't  think  it  makes  sense.  Nature  is  still 
conceived  of  as  the  other,  but  nature  is  not  the  other. 
Nature  is  us,  our  bodies,  our  creations. 

Yet  with  this  concept,  it  does  seem  like  in  our  cities, 
our  population,  we  compensate  for  nature's  perceived  lack 
in  other  ways.  This  is  so  strange,  but  there  are  people  in 
our  urban  areas  that  we  think  of  now  as  wolves.  There  are 
incidents  of  violence  called  wilding.  Attacks  of  a  "pack"  of 
evil  young  men  made  on  women  or  other  young  men. 
These  actions  are  so  aggressive  and  so  violent  and  so 
incomprehensible  to  us  that  we  think  of  it  as  wild,  as  wild 
behavior.  If  you  think  about  cities  as  places  with  natural 
environments  that  contain  other  species,  here  humans 
have  replaced  other  species  in  occupying  all  niches.  Now 
we  tell  stories  about  black  people,  about  violent  urban 
places,  and  make  movies  about  it.  We  represent  to 
ourselves,  to  other  people,  the  whole  range  of  species — 
from  wild  terror  to  cultivated  caring — that  we  once  repre- 
sented with  stories  about  wolves. 

ed     How  do  you  think  this  sort  of  approach  and  this  sort  of  an 
attitude  towards  nature  might  be  overcome?  In  design  studios 
especially,  do  you  see  a  model  for  Integrating  the  disciplines? 

KH    I  think  there  is  no  substitute  for  the  kind  of  energy 
and  passion  multi-discipUnary  studios  that  involve  envi- 
ronmental scientists  as  well  as  artists,  engineers,  and  other 
design  professionals  can  pass  on  to  students.  But  I  also 
think  an  "event-based  curriculum"  in  which  students  have 
shorter,  more  intense  collaborations  can  create  extremely 
memorable  experiences,  and  teach  very  important  lessons 
that  stick  in  people's  minds.  I  think  a  good  education 
should  use  both  methods  of  exposing  students  to  multi- 
disciplinary  work — sometimes  in  semester-long  studios, 
but  at  least  once  each  term  running  intensified  charrettes 
that  involve  a  field  trip  or  some  memorable  physical  expe- 
rience as  well  as  a  design  exercise. 

What's  missing  from  the  education  students  get  in 
both  departments  of  this  school  is  an  ability  to  compare 
and  prioritize  urban  design  strategies,  in  a  very  basic  sense. 


and  of  course  the  larger  body  of  knowledge  of  how  natural 
processes  both  affect  and  are  affected  by  our  spatial  plan- 
ning decisions.  What's  missing  from  my  own  courses  is 
probably  an  articulation  of  the  connection  between,  on  the 
one  hand,  the  functions  embodied  in  the  physical  and 
biological  environment — and  on  the  other,  the  world  of 
cultural  myths  and  stories  which  allow  us  to  interpret  that 
environment  and  choose  how  to  act  in  it.  1  don't  have  the 
time  to  cover  all  that  ground  in  the  seminar  courses  I'm 
teaching  now,  and  only  hint  at  these  connections  (in  a  way 
that  I  hope  makes  students  curious  about  them!).  For 
example,  both  of  my  courses  have  become  focused  on 
water  as  an  element  of  urban  design  and  spatial  planning, 
but  use  different  emphases  and  project  contexts  to 
communicate  what  it  is  that  could  be  called  "strategic" 
about  the  role  and  meaning  of  water  in  urbanized  areas. 
Really,  the  most  important  piece  of  an  urban  design 
education  that  1  think  is  missing  in  our  departments  is  the 
critical  ability  to  know  when  to  STOP  making  more  and 
more  extensive  cities — and  what  to  do  as  an  alternative.  It 
planners  and  designers  don't  know  when  and  where  not  to 
build,  the  concept  of  sustainability  won't  be  a  meaningful 
part  of  urban  design. 

ed     Can  you  say  something  more  on  this  ability  to  "know  when  to 
stop"  and  the  concept  of  sustainability? 

KH    1  think  that  the  future  of  this  whole  sustainability 
question,  the  future  of  landscape  and  urban  design,  is  not 
going  to  be  so  much  what  we  do  around  buildings  in  new 
development  areas,  although  that's  always  part  of  what  we 
do  for  quality  of  public  spaces,  but  rather,  a  two-pronged 
approach  in  the  future,  where  on  one  had  we're  thinking 
about  making  cities  more  dense  and  compact  and  that 
really  work  (and  in  the  U.S.  that's  no  small  task);  and  on 
the  other  hand  looking  at  what  we're  going  to  conserve. 
My  work  right  now  ranges  from  asking  what  the  water 
quality  impacts  are  of  denser  developments  to  National 
Park  areas,  where  we're  really  trying  to  preserve  wilderness 
as  a  concept.  I  work  right  now  in  Canada's  Jasper  National 
Park,  which  is  designated  one  of  their  wilderness  parks. 


43 


Tlnrsholds  14 


The  problem  is  that  development  isn't  just  happening 
in  certain  places;  urbanization  is  happening  everywhere. 
there's  a  town  of  5000  people  in  the  middle  of  this  wilder- 
ness park,  and  development  has  been  crushing  the  parks, 
whether  it's  there,  or  whether  its  Yellowstone,  or  wherever. 
Our  urbanization  and  the  internationalization  of  urban 
financial  capital  is  putting  pressure  to  develop  on  all  of 
these  areas.  If  we  don't  take  a  two-pronged  approach  in 
knowing  what  not  to  build  on,  we're  not  going  to  have 
anything  else  but  cities  200  years  from  now. 

ed     This  IS  not  unlike  the  ideas  of  the  modernist  environmental 
planner  Dioxides,  mentioned  in  the  work  of  Pani  Pyla  elsewhere  in 
this  journal.  Dioxides  had  something  to  say  about  zoning  the  world 
in  terms  of  development/non-development  pnorities  irregardless  of 
national,  ethnic  or  regional  boundanes  in  order  to  preference  envi- 
ronmental balance  first- 

KH    If  you  want  to  have  a  spectrum  from  wilderness  areas 
(where  we  feel  there  is  something  larger  that  us),  to  dense 
urban  areas  (where  we  enjoy  our  own  social  interaction 
and  feel  part  of  our  own  society),  we're  going  to  have  to  do 
this  consciously,  its  not  going  to  just  happen.  Development 
pressure  is  just  a  continuous  surface  across  the  planet  right 
now.  There's  no  place  that's  really  not  under  development 
pressure  (except,  ironically,  some  of  our  older  cites.)  And  I 
think  that  there's  been  a  romanticization  of  what  wilder- 
ness is  or  what  nature  is  in  architecture  which  says:  "I  can 
put  a  building  or  set  of  buildings  next  to  something  and 
create  a  contrast  using  landscape"  or  says  "landscape  is  the 
Borg  or  the  non-human,  and  the  building  is  the  human  or 
the  cultural,  and  therefore  the  building  puts  the  non- 
human  in  context". 

But  in  fact  that's  not  true,  because  all  of  our  land- 
scapes are  heavily  reworked,  manipulated,  cultural  arti- 


facts. Even  wilderness  is  something  that's  in  debate  as  to 
whether  the  possibility  for  wUderness  exists  at  this  point. 
In  the  way  that  the  atmosphere  and  historical  activities  of 
many  people  have  affected  landscapes.  Everything  is  a 
cultural  landscape.  The  idea  of  wilderness  has  to  be  rein- 
vented and  may  even  apply  to  cities  as  well  as  to  almost 
rural  areas.  There  are  parts  of  New  York  City  that  are 
"wilder"  than  parts  of  Canada. 

So  I  guess  that's  why  I  bring  up  the  question  of  where 
to  stop  developing.  The  New  Urbanists  have  talked  a  lot 
about  compact  development  and  benefits  of  urban  sustain- 
abUity,  but  most  of  their  projects,  almost  all  of  their 
projects  are  on  greenfield  sites — they're  on  new  sites,  and 
that's  not  sustainable  So  how  do  we  get  that  idea  to  apply 
to  cities  and  keep  the  alternative?  Having  an  alternative  is 
important  in  understanding  what  the  gradient  is,  from  the 
least  developed  to  the  most  developed.  It's  simply  not  the 
future  trajectory  that  we  should  develop  everything  in 
some  way. 

ed     You  seem  to  be  suggesting  that  a  better  model  for  project 
development  would  begin  with  site  reading,  site  analysis,  the  inclu- 
sion of  landscape  architects,  and  then  lead  into  the  architectural 
proposition.  Do  you  have  other  examples  of  practices  or  specific 
projects  that  have  benefited  from  such  cross-disciplinary  efforts? 

KH    I  think  there  are  endless  examples  of  ways  in  which 
strategies  literally  grounded  in  the  site  have  resulted  in 
better  designs  overall.  Two  that  come  to  mind  right  away 
are  the  original  campus  plan  for  the  University  of  Virginia 
and  the  plan  for  the  Salk  Institute  in  California.  Both  of 
these  were  sited  with  an  eye  for  "the  infinite" —  they 
opened  out  onto  views  of  a  distant  horizon,  in  order  to 
connect  the  viewer  with  both  her  immediate  surroundings 
and,  simultaneously,  the  larger  world. 

These  designs  are  not  just  about  the  immediate 
surroundings.  There  is  a  second  and  equally  important 
siting  concept  about  making  a  conceptual  connection  with 
the  distant  horizon,  the  greater  whole.  This  is  what's 
revealed  in  Vincent  Scully's  analysis  of  the  Greek  theater. 
The  siting  reveals  a  feature  in  the  distant  horizon,  in  this 
case  it  is  the  cleft  and  the  horn  in  the  mountains.  And 
viewing  those  features  was  very  important  to  their  under- 


i»!^A-"<; 


standing.  It's  about  everything  in  that  cuhure,  from  sexual- 
ity, to  fertility  to  the  culture  of  the  gods.  That  was  the 
larger  focus.  In  Jefferson's  UVa  campus,  where  the  opening 
is  focused  towards  the  larger  mountains,  it's:  here's  the 
campus  and  there's  the  bigger  world.  A  different  context 
grounds  you.  And  it's  done  in  Salk.  A  channel  of  water 
points  out  to  the  ocean  and  the  openness  of  that  land- 
scape. These  examples  embody  this  two-pronged  approach 
we  have  to  take,  I  think,  as  a  sensibility. 

This  strategy  reminds  us  of  the  need  to  set  our  goals 
and  priorities  in  a  very  broad  context,  by  opening  our  eyes 
to  (hterally)  the  "big  picture"  in  a  way  that  captures  the 
imagination.  Olmsted's  design  of  Boston's  "Emerald  Neck- 
lace" of  urban  parks  was  based  on  an  analysis  of  its  urban 
waterways — and  helps  Bostonians  make  sense  of  their 
environment  by  letting  them  see  how  the  Fens  are 
connected  to  the  Charles  River.  This  kind  of  intra-city 
orientation  using  connected  sites  is  critical  to  the  legibility 
of  urban  life — it  made  the  simple  idea  of  a  linear  park  into 
a  broader  conceptual  model  of  a  city  with  a  water-borne 
circulation  system.  Other  examples  include  the  Woodlands 
new  town  near  Houston,  Texas,  which  used  natural  surface 
drainage  instead  of  storm  sewers  to  control  flooding — 
while  providing  recreational  corridors,  wildlife  habitat,  a 
highly-desirable  residential  aesthetic,  and  reducing  infra- 
structure costs;  while  a  project  which  I  worked  on  recently 
in  eastern  Germany  used  linear  parks  as  an  infrastructure 
for  monitoring  and  remediating  groundwater  pollution 
around  a  large  city.  All  of  these  projects  started  with  the 
site,  using  priorities  developed  from  a  combination  of 
cultural  myths  and  natural  processes  to  interpret  it  and 
evolve  a  dimensioned,  structural  approach  to  providing 
architectural  form. 

I  don't  think  these  examples  represent  new  forms.  But 
I  do  think  they  represent  the  use  of  existing  forms  in  new 
ways.  That's  a  critical  piece  of  what  designers  can  do  to 
promote  sustainability —  using  well-known  forms  in  inno- 
vative ways.  It  represents  a  kind  of  spatial  strategic  think- 
ing that  lets  the  designer  draw  on  the  history  of  how  a 
form  has  been  used  to  come  up  with  new  functions,  and 
therefore  generate  more  complex  meanings  for  the  form. 


opposite  Salk  Institute  sketch.  Louis  Kahn 

top  University  of  Virginia.  Thomas  Jefferson.  Charlottesville, 
Virginia  1819-26,  engraving  1856 

above  The  axis  of  the  Acropolis  with  the  Horns  of  Hymettos 
[from  Vincent  Scully) 


Thresholds  14 


46 


wintlmilUvretectK 
power 


surface 


subsurface 


which  may  shift  the  way  people  understand  its  functions 
over  time. 

ed     Now,  in  your  Germany  project  you  do  this.  Is  this  associated 
to  the  two  pronged  approach? 

KH    In  Germany  I  was  trying  to  invent  new  functions  in 
and  for  common  forms.  And  that  is  the  two  pronged  asso- 
ciation to  this  work.  The  linear  park  aspect  is  not  a  new 
concept  by  any  means,  but  the  underground  functional 
aspect  of  it  is  different  than  the  common.  Given  the  two 
schools  of  thought  about  meaning,  Phenomenology  vs. 
collective  storytelling,  folklore,  or  collective  meaning,  I 
think  that  collective  storytelling  is  really  the  source  of 
meaning. 

Meaning  derives  fi-om  the  stories  people  tell  in 
groups,  as  groups,  not  from  a  symbol,  and  some  funda- 
mental, phenomenological  reaction  a  person  has  to  a  given 
symbol,  say  a  circle,  fire  or  a  square.  Its  about  groups 
telling  stories.  What  happened  at  a  certain  place,  the  mean- 
ing it  has  in  their  lives,  what  occurred  at  a  certain  time  that 
was  really  extraordinary  to  them.  These  stories,  that's 


where  meaning  comes  from.  I  rely  on  the  story  telling  for 
interpretation.  I  think  that  the  phenomenological 
approach  is  interesting  but  a  distraction.  I  rely  on  groups 
gathering  and  interacting  with  things,  not  on  an  analysis 
that  the  circle  is  the  symbol  of  this,  or  fire  of  that.  And 
that's  a  big  change  fi^om  the  earth  art  of  the  1970s,  the 
Spiral  Jetty  for  example,  that  really  relies  on  the  phenome- 
nological aspect  of  what  they  were  doing.  I  want  things 
that  mean  something  and  do  something.  1  want  things  that 
work.  I  guess  I'm  very  MIT  in  that  way. 

So  in  Germany  a  system  of  underground,  hidden 
dikes  could  prevent  the  existing  ground  water  conditions 
from  ever  contaminating  the  city  supply.  I  proposed  a 
system  of  linear  parks,  as  common  forms,  that  act  as  dikes, 
both  literally  and  metaphorically,  below.  These  hydraulic 
walls  created  by  pumping  wells  in  underground  canopies 
prevent  contamination.  A  wall  of  unseen  wells  in  overlap- 
ping, upside-down  "umbrellas,"  prevents  that  contamina- 
tion from  overcoming  the  wall  of  the  wells.  The  linear 
parks  above,  then,  look  nothing  like,  but  act  metaphori- 
cally as,  a  medieval  wall  spatial  analogy.  It  is  in  this  way 
that  I  set  goals  and  priorities  in  a  very  broad  context,  and 
with  common  elements  redefined,  opened  our  eyes  (liter- 
ally), to  the  big  picture  of  water  quality  in  a  way  that 
captures  the  imagination. 

ed     With  your  ideas  on  where  meaning  comes  from,  can  you 
suggest  some  terms  stemming  from  landscape  and  ecology  that 
are  missing  from  or  are  poorly  defined  in  an  architect  or  urban 
planner's  glossary  of  concepts? 

KH    Some  of  the  most  commonly  misused  terms  are 
"natural''  (often  confused  with  a  romantic  ideal  or 
aesthetic),  "ecological"  (often  confounded  with  "environ- 
mentalism"  and  other  political  and  social  philosophies), 
and  also  "sustainable,"  "healthy,"  and  "habitat"  are 
frequently  used  in  ways  which  confuse  priorities,  hopes, 
and  hypotheses. 

ed     Do  you  find  that  our  ability  to  look  at  examples  of  "irresponsi- 
ble development"  perhaps  sharpens  our  skills  or  provides  a  better 
definition  of  the  problems  at  stake? 


I 


KH    I  think  you  have  to  learn  two  processes.  In  the  studio,  I 
want  to  teach  how  to  go  beyond  conventional  practice.  But 
you  have  to  teach  what  is  the  conventional  practice  first.  In 
a  way  students  don't  know  what  that  is  yet.  You  have  to  get 
to  the  point  of  simply  comparing  what  are  the  conse- 
quences of  a  conventional  plan,  and  what  are  the  conse- 
quences of  an  innovative  one  in  the  real  world.  Take  a  plan 
that  tries  to  improve  the  ground  water  quality  while  devel- 
oping. You  have  to  ask:  one  might  do  well  on  a  marketing 
scale,  while  the  other  might  do  much  better  on  environ- 
mental benefits.  So  making  sense  of  your  own  position  on 
what  the  future  priorities  might  be  is  important. 

I  think  just  looking  at  the  problems  with  the  conven- 
tional approach  can  give  the  student  the  sense  that  we  can't 
do  it  right.  If  you  use  successful  programs  to  critique 
unsuccessful  programs  then  the  student  gets  the  sense  that 
everyone  could  be  doing  this  right,  if  they  learn  what's 
working.  I'd  look  at  what's  working  and  see  if  they  cover 
all  their  bases,  and  ask  where  they  could  be  extended, 
made  strategic  as  well  as  environmental. 

ed     You  seem  to  frequently  mention  that  strategy  is  very  impor- 
tant- Are  architects  and  landscape  architects  renewing  their  own 
strategies  in  response  to  territory  shared  with  [or  missing  from]  the 
others? 

KH    In  either  discipline,  landscape  or  architecture,  the 
talented  ones,  the  ones  who  are  really  going  to  be  effective, 
see  their  practice  more  as  strategic.  I  think  that  design 
professionals  who  are  going  to  succeed  are  doing  this. 

They  see  it  less  as  wedding  yourself  to  a  discipline, 
than  as  redefining  what  practice  is  going  to  be  in  general. 
For  example,  we  used  to  think  when  you  go  to  a  meeting 
with  the  client,  you  would  bring  three  versions  of  your 
scheme.  You'd  say:  "You  know,  we  could  do  A...",  and  the 
client's  face  would  look  not  too  pleased.  So  you'd  take  that 
one  away  real  quick  and  say;  "Or!  We  can  do  B!"  And  the 
client  was  still  not  happy  .  And  so  you'd  show  "C".  And  you 
were  hoping  they  liked  that  one,  and  you  kind  of  saved  the 
best  one  for  last  anyway. 

But  I  think  now  we  go  into  a  meeting  knowing  this  is 
really  more  of  a  probabilistic  process.  We  might  think,  OK, 
here  are  the  anchor  points  that  we're  building  a  form  with. 


and  then  here's  what  we  think  might  happen,  or,  might 
happen,  around  it.  And,  importantly,  here's  how  your 
development  will  be  adaptable  to  that  fluctuating 
economic  impact — and  when  I  say  economy,  I  mean  the 
real  economy,  that  which  includes  environmental  costs. 

So  the  target  of  architects  and  landscape  architects  is 
really  outside  both  fields.  It's  really  a  strategy  of:  "what  will 
make  each  project  effective?"  And  this  is  economic.  So  it's 
more  of  a  triangle:  landscape,  architecture,  the  economy  of 
it.  The  two  disciplines  are  really  trying  to  position  them- 
selves appropriately  in  the  triangle  to  be  strategic. 

Also  I  think  there  is  a  sharing  here.  Landscape  archi- 
tects have  traditionally  been  very  vulnerable  in  making  any 
intellectual  statement  of  what  they're  doing.  They're  more 
practice  than  theory  oriented.  Architecture  people  have 
brought  more  intellectual  spark. 

Landscape  architects  have  brought  a  whole  sense  of 
process.  They've  said  you're  not  designing  a  thing — you're 
designing  a  thing  in  a  changing  context,  itself  part  of  the 
process.  You're  designing  a  thing  that  is  meant  to  survive  a 
fluctuating  economy.  Landscape  architects  know  it  has  to 
be  more  about  change  over  time  because  their  designs 
always  do  change  over  time. 


47 


Thresl)oliis  14 


Gray-areas  in  Green  Politics: 

Reflections  on  the  Modern  Environmental  Movement 

Panayiota  Pyla 


"The  phrase  'only  one  earth'  was  born  on  the  Apollo  8  mission  circling 
the  moon..-  The  Image  of  the  tiny  earth  with  the  moon  In  the  fore- 
ground, simultaneously  shown  on  TV  sets  around  the  globe,  changed 
man's  cosmic  view  of  his  home"' 

The  environmental  consciousness  that  emerged  in  the 
1960s  as  scientific  research  brought  to  the  forefront  the 
reaUties  of  the  earth's  finite  resources  has  in  the  past  few 
years  come  under  scrutiny,  while  the  ecological  movements 
of  that  time  now  seem  unsophisticated  in  their  enthusi- 
asm, and  ideologically  suspect.  Key  contributions  to  earlier 
ecological  movements,  such  as  Rachel  Carson's  Silent 
Spring  (1962),  known  as  the  "watershed  of  the  modern 
environmental  movement"  because  it  infiltrated  public 
sentiment  by  exposing  the  excesses  of  industrial  agricul- 
ture; Buckminster  Fuller's  Whole  Earth  Catalog  which 
emphasized  the  fear  of  ecological  crisis;  and  Constantinos 
Doxiades's  Ekistics  (1968)  which  aimed  to  define  how  built 
settlements  would  be  sensitive  to  the  global  ecosystem: 
each  of  these  positions  assumed  that  the  natural  environ- 
ment has  a  stable  "ecological  balance"  which  needs  to  be 
preserved,  and  each  sought  to  establish  a  "harmonious" 
interdependence  among  humans  and  nature. 

The  assumptions  behind  modern  environmental  move- 
ments, contemporary  critics  argue,  obscure  "the  social 
relations  and  priorities  that  go  into  environmental  prac- 
tices"^ and  depoliticize  environmental  matters.  The  book 
Uncommon  Ground:  Toward  Reinventing  Nature  (edited  by 
William  Cronon,  1995),  which  is  a  collection  of  essays  by 
leading  environmentalists  across  disciplines,  presents  some 
the  most  persuasive  challenges  against  the  modern  envi- 


ronmental movement  of  the  1960s.  This  book  demon- 
strates that  far  from  being  "universal,"  conceptions  of 
nature  are  tacitly  associated  with  political  structures  of 
cultural  domination,  racial  biases,  social  beliefs,  class  divi- 
sions or  gender  politics.  Each  of  the  book's  articles  reveals 
the  complex  entanglement  of  the  "natural"  with  the 
"human"  world  and  uncovers  how  the  constructed  dualism 
between  the  two  is  not  simply  false  but  politically  preju- 
diced. William  Cronon's  article,  for  example,  demonstrates 
that  wealthy  suburbanites  who  protest  the  farmers  who 
"exploit  nature,"  do  not  represent  an  untainted  concern  for 
the  destruction  of  nature's  "balance."  Rather,  their  "envi- 
ronmental" arguments  are  predicated  on  class  biases,  and 
in  their  in  their  righteous  protectionism  threaten  to 
deprive  the  farmer  of  his/her  living.'  Similarly,  Candace 
Slater's  article  "Amazonia  as  Edenic  Narrative"  uncovers 
how  popular  notions  which  pigeonhole  the  Yanomani 
Indians  as  ah  intrinsic  part  of  their  "natural"  environment 
fail  to  recognize  the  needs  of  this  tribe  as  a  human  culture. 
Dominant  tendencies  to  exoticize  this  tribe  of  Amazonia  as 
"natural,"  Slater  argues,  are  predicated  on  romantic 
paradisal  and  Edenic  images,  and  dehumanize  a  place  with 
thousands  of  inhabitants,  (fig.  1) 

Expositions  of  tacit  political  and  power  dynamics,  such  as 
those  of  Uncommon  Ground,  promise  to  empower  those 
who  have  been  suppressed  by  essentializing  concepts  of 


nature.  Yet  these  insights  are  at  once  enHghtening  and 
hindering  for  the  purposes  of  environmentalism.'  In 
uncovering  the  political  partialities  of  earlier  environ- 
mental movements  and  in  uprooting  any  transcultural 
understanding  of  nature,  current  analyzes  do  not  only  rela- 
tivize  nature,  but  also  relativize  the  concerns  about  the 
environment,  and  may  end  up  turning  them  into  political 
issues  alone. 

The  predicament  behind  the  politics  of  environmentalism 
was  most  striking  in  a  recent  BBC-World  Service  Report 
about  an  international  summit  on  nuclear  proliferation. 
The  radio  correspondent  meticulously  accounted  for  all 
the  positions  voiced  by  the  parties  at  the  summit:  The 
Russian  representative  asserted  that  nuclear  reactors  in 
Russia  vifere  operating  within  "established  safety  specifica- 
tions"; the  British  prime  minister,  in  turn,  doubted  this 
assertion;  the  French  envoy  confined  himself  to  impossibly 
ambiguous  remarks;  and  "the  Environmentalists,"  the  BBC 
correspondent  continued,  categorically  demanded  that 
most  of  the  nuclear  reactors  scattered  around  the  former 
USSR  countries  be  closed  immediately  because  they  are 
older  and  in  worse  condition  than  Chernobyl. 

It  may  be  a  substantial  success  for  those  "environmental- 
ists" represented  in  the  summit  to  have  their  voice  heard 
along  with  the  opinions  of  top  Government  officials  from 
many  countries.  However,  by  inserting  themselves  within 
the  international  political  spectrum,  these  environmental- 
ists were  constituted  as  a  political  entity,  and  their  position 
was  represented  in  the  media  as  one  of  the  many  political 
voices.  In  the  process,  environmental  concerns  become  a 
political  posture,  which  obscures  the  fact  that  if  another 
"Chernobyl-type"  disaster  happens,  everybody  (whatever 
their  politics)  will  be  affected. 

This  predicament  is  acknowledged  by  the  authors  of 
Uncommon  Ground.  Despite  their  systematic  expositions  of 
"the  multiple  natures  of  that  thing  we  are  quick  to  call 


By  JAMES  ■ROOXE 


Pfwidnil  FrrTundo  CoHof  Jr  Mello 
(ui  mov«4 10  ,c,ci,<T  ■  KmchoT  Am* 
ton  rajn  lornl  «,  a  ti«n,planil  lor  Ihr 
Yanomafni  Iniitns  a  iniM  vinually 
unUtichRj  bv  RKidam  tlvilnairan 
wlnw  wayi  4«ic  (rom  ihe  Sl<mr  Aftc 

nr  t«w  reserve,  cnupkd  wilh  a 
aJtBhiJv  arnalkr  parti  acro&,  Itw  Inr 
dcr.  HI  Vannuela.  <aUI  allow  thr  Yani> 
II,  SouU,  Aman<a 


6aj]l  vjuar 


Brazil  Creates  Reserve  for  Imperiled  Amazon  Tribe 


wililrr 

Vr  angg\ra  lot  St  yvan  lor  wtui 

h»  ]uii  happmrd,*'  uid  Claudia  Ando' 

|ar  coordinaior  of  ihr  CornmivUun  for 

ih*  Creiiion  of  a  Yanomami  Part,  4 

private  gtrojp  bawd  hrrr  - 

WHh  the  lair  ol  South   Ameneai 

,000    YanDinami    an    mlcmaliocul 

luic.  Napolwn  A  >7hignon,  an  Anwn- 

carianthrDpoloBiti.K-tion]  wK]<'^p^ralJ 

Amrrltan    and    European    mphona 

*hen h« uid  today  me  iFkepfionc  inlc- 

vtrv     TNit  will  go  •  long  icay  to  mali- 

init  culiur.1l  lurvivil  ol  ihe  Yarramami 

a  rrai  (KHSibllily  " 

MIKtaiy  RolM*  M«vr 
But  noi  rveryone  wii  clapping  in 
Sratilia  un  Friday  when  Mr  Colbi 
siped  a  d«rr(«  mcrving  I  prrctnl  of 
Bmil'i  land  mau lor  ihraancm'snii 
■natrd  9,IIM  Yanomami  Ai  thr  ligning 
ceremony.  <ien  Clarloi  TinoMi.  the 
Armv  MmUler.  (loinlaily  abiuowd 
from  louiint  iht-  appli 


e  and  puniy  of  cam* 
ritmliuj>  It  nplOKed  in  order  to  kpep 
dormani  the  {niefillal  of  tV  SratUtan 
Amaion,  warned  a  reiml  study  by 
Ihe  Superior  War  Colkrte.  Braillielile 

Dewrnblng  Indian  and  other  re- 
serves aj  ittieraled  Bonei  '  under  irt- 
■rmalional  roAlroJ.  Ihe  miliiary  docu- 
meni  pmlKtrd,  11  would  like  a  great 
Brazilian  eflon  lor  iheir  ellminaiHai, 
probably  resoniog  to  >a(  ' 

Bui  Ihe  army't  pollliul  tiandlnglwt 
tjeeti  weakened  in  r«c«ni  dav»  by  news- 
paper reporu  ol  fixed  bKldlng  prac- 
tices lor  equipnicnl  praairemenl:> 

RetMifftng  the  irmy*i  oaiMvia]  jrcu 
riiy  arRutnemi.  Mr  CoUor  s  anrmunce- 
meni  came  en  the  natknal  holiday 
marking  the  mililary'i  afaolilKn  ol 
Brazli'i  mourchy  m  1184 

Braillian  "sovereignty  roniinuei  in- 
lacti  and  even  reiriforoed."  Mr  Collor 
uid  of  the  park    Two  weeks  agOi 
approved  71  othei  Indian  reiervei.i 
enng  41,471  M)uare  mllev 


Yanomaffii  naiton.  mnuemialelnnenu 
of  Braiil's  military  htve  argued  thai 
Braul  ihould  clear  a  I  Imilr-'Wide  bor 
ifcr  nlrip  to  leparale  Braill's  Yano- 
moini  fnrfn  Veneniela  >  YBnomamt 

Sesrchitig  lor  a  mtaioa  aflef  (he 
collapse  ol  ml emai tonal  CJHnmunlsm. 
Braul't  ronlerVdUvi'  grtterali  are  in 
ciraungly  laking  naiwnalisi  siands  on 


Collor  igjKirvd  ecoDomK  oblK 
raised  by  governor*  ol  two  iiaie* 
where  the  park  will  be  locatnj.  Amaio- 
and  Roralma 

:icti  in  gold,  (m.  diamoTHlt  and  rinc. 
park  area  u  virtually  papered  with 


!•  hy  mining  com|Mnte .  for 


10  spproval  by  Indi- 
Id  medial  wn  by  Bra 
imn  iitency,  Funai 


Single'HUndedlv 

Invented  by  Bieguct,  the  ']urn>  Hour"  automatic  waich 

with  houf  duf^ay  aitd  minute  KanJ  Crafted  in  plaimurn  with 

a  porcebin  dial,  fmm  a  limited  lenei  numbeie>)  Ky  the 

m3ta.M«.000  EnUiged  in  t)uw  detail 

TiFFANY&CO. 


■ai»W*«-  •*.■■•  ;-    «a-^<i 


'»oK3Bni3ft~[a5Eai 


fig  1  /^  New  York  Times  article  that 
promotes  the  common  preconcep- 
tion that  the  Yanomani  Indians  are 
"natural"  parts  of  the  land  Slater 
refers  to  it  and  also  points  to  the 
irony  that  this  article  is  accompanied 
by  a  Tiffany  S  Co  advertisement, 
which  underlines  the  rigid  juxtaposi- 
tion between  the  Yanomani  as  part 
of  nature,  and  the  "modern  civiliza- 
tion "  as  part  of  "culture." 


nature,"  many  of  the  authors  in 

Uncommon  Ground,  point  out  that 

"nature"  as  the  non-human  world 

does,  after  all,  exist.  Along  with  her 

expositions  of  the  gender  biases 

behind  modern  meta-narratives 

about  nature,  Carolyn  Merchant, 

for  instance,  also  declares  that  "the 

environmental  crisis  is  real"  and 

that  "the  vanishing  frogs,  fish,  songbirds  are  telling  us  the 

truth."'  This  warning  exemplifies  the  ambivalence  of  the 

author  who  recognizes  that  once  nature  is  presented  as  an 

ideologically  determined  concept,  and  the  protection  of 

the  environment  is  perceived  as  a  political  tactic,  then 

there  is  a  danger  that  we  lose  sight  of  threats  that  are 

caused  by  the  destruction  of  the  environment,  threats  that 

exist  beyond  the  realm  of  relativity  and  the  politics  of 

knowledge. 

To  tackle  this  predicament,  I  propose  to  reconsider  the 
premises  of  the  modern  environmental  movement  and  to 
explore  how  its  insights  could  help  rethink  environmental- 
ism as  a  critical  attitude  for  the  present.  Using  "Ekistics"  as 
a  representative  case  for  the  environmental  consciousness 
that  emerged  in  the  sixties,  I  reflect  both  on  the  inadequa- 


49 


Thresholds  14 


50 


fig  2  The  larger  vision  of 
Ekistics  was  to  combine  all 
disciplines  to  outline  a 
comprehensive  plan  for  global 
development 


cies  of  modern  environmental  thought  and  on  its  contri- 
butions. While  rejecting  universalistic  and  essentializing 
conceptions  of  nature,  I  try  to  negotiate  between  the  aspi- 
rations of  earlier  environmental  thought  and  later  critiques 
of  it.  My  goal  is  not  to  reinstate  an  anachronistic  ecological 
approach,  but  to  circumscribe  current  positions  on  envi- 
ronmentalism  in  such  a  way  that  their  liberating  force  can 
extend  to  the  realm  of  pra.xis. 

"Ekistics,"  was  one  of  the  first  theories  that  introduced 
environmental  concerns  into  the  realm  of  architecture  and 
planning.  Developed  by  the  Greek  urban  planner  Constan- 
tinos  Doxiades  (1913-1975)  in  the  late  fifties,  Ekistics — the 
"Science  of  Human  Settlements" — vv^as  an  interdisciplinary 
theory  aimed  at  outlining  methods  for  structuring  an 
economically  and  ecologically  viable  urbanized  world  for 
the  future.  (The  term  "Ekistics,"  coined  by  Doxiades 
himself,  is  derived  form  the  Greek  word  oikos,  meaning 
home,  and  has  the  same  roots  as  the  word  "Ecology.") 
Doxiades's  theory  of  Ekistics  had  a  tremendous  impact 
around  the  world:  By  the  mid-sixties,  it  was  taught  in 
universities;  it  formed  the  basis  for  government  programs 
on  urban  development  in  the  US,  Italy,  Greece,  Brazil, 
Lebanon,  Pakistan,  Iraq,  and  other  countries;  and  it  was 
incorporated  in  the  agenda  of  the  Habitat,  the  United 
Nations  conference  on  Human  settlements. 


Doxiades's  Ekistics  represents  the  ideas  of  architectural 
modernism  in  its  more  critical  stage,  when  it  began  to 
temper  the  optimism  for  technological  progress  with  envi- 
ronmental awareness  and  anxiety  about  the  earth's  over- 
population and  finite  resources."  In  his  books  and  in  the 
Journal  Ekistics,'  Doxiades  gave  a  terrifying  portrait  of  the 
environmental  "catastrophe"  that  awaits  if  no  systematic 
"plan  of  action"  is  taken  for  a  more  "sensible"  utilization  of 
earth's  resources.  He  passionately  emphasized  the  need  to 
sustain  "the  ecological  balance."  The  goal  of  Ekistics  was  to 
outline  a  global  system  of  development  that  would  make  a 
wise  use  of  the  environment,  by  reconciling,  Do.xiades 
argued,  "the  human  efforts  for  growth  and  development" 
with  the  limitations  of  a  "finite  world."  Ekistics  intended  to 
respond  to  massive  construction  demands  around  the 
world  promoting,  as  Doxiades  argued,  "social  and 
economic  development"  (e.g.,  post-war  reconstruction  for 
Europe,  housing  for  South  America,  urban  institutions  for 
the  emerging  states  in  the  Middle  East);  at  the  same  time, 
Ekistics  would  outline  how  built  environments  could 
remain  sensitive  to  the  vulnerability  of  nature.'  (fig.  2) 

Similar  to  Rachel  Carson's  method  of  analyzing  the  rela- 
tionships between  living  organisms  and  their  surround- 
ings, Ekistics  studied  the  relationship  between  built 
settlements  and  the  natural  setting  and  attempted  outline  a 
problem-solving  process  for  global  planning  that  defined 
how  settlements  should  be  planned  in  balance  with  nature. 
"Human  settlements"  (notice,  the  universalistic  connota- 
tions of  the  very  term)  were  treated  as  organisms  having  a 
reciprocal  relationship  with  their  larger  environment. 
Resource  and  environmental  management  became  central 
to  the  Ekistic  method  of  planning  in  order  to  defend  the 
natural  and  built  environment.  Doxiades  created  meticu- 
lous scientific  charts  that  calculated  the  resources  in  a  place 
and  specified  material-types  to  be  used  in  different  areas, 
methods  for  underground  water  distribution,  rules  tor 
land  distribution  for  different  regions,  etc.  Ekistics  then 
inserted  these  specifications  into  calculations  about  the 


ecological  balance  of  a  specific  place  and  the  globe  at 
large.'  (fig.  3) 

The  widespread  acceptance  of  the  Ekistic  theory  and  its 
worldwide  implementation  as  an  environmentally  sensitive 
planning  method  depended  very  much  on  the  presentation 
of  Doxiades's  technical  and  managerial  consulting  as  a 
rational,  disinterested  analysis,  detached  from  the  specific 
locale  it  studied.  This  "detachment"  concealed  political 
questions  of  power  and  inequality  into  technical  issues  of 
natural  resources  and  their  management.  With  rhetoric 
such  as  "action  needs  to  be  taken"  Doxiades  systematically 
concealed  by  whom  the  required  action  would  be  taken.  In 
most  cases,  Doxiades's  decisions  were  confined  within 
established  governmental  agendas,  which  were,  in  turn, 
often  funded  by  private  US  agencies  operating  around  the 
world.  Far  from  being  democratically  determined,  Doxi- 
ades's decisions  on  where  housing  should  be  built,  or  how 
dense  it  should  be,  failed  to  address  the  needs  of  the  less 
privileged  in  a  society.'"  Imposing  strict  zoning  separations 
in  the  name  of  environmental  efficiency,  Doxiades 
remained  oblivious  to  the  social  inequalities  inherent  in 
these  territorial  divisions,  and  even  exacerbated  them." 
This  is  the  irony  of  the  purported  neutrality  of  such 
"ecologically  conscious"  urban  ordering:  the  proclaimed 


aim  to  protect  of  natural  assets,  trees  and  scenery  and  to 
improve  local  climate,  camouflaged  the  reality  of  segrega- 
tion of  the  poor  from  the  upper  classes.'- 

As  we  come  to  see  the  specifics  of  the  Ekistic  theory,  we 
can  recognize  in  it  elements  emblematic  of  both  the 
strengths  and  weaknesses  of  the  modern  environmental 
sensibility.  The  modern  environmentalists'  attempts  to 
systematically  capture,  order  and  objectify  ecological 
processes  often  overlooked  dominant  power  structures, 
and  exacerbated  social  and  cultural  inequalities.  Yet  their 
pioneering  institution  of  ecological  sensitivity,  their  call  for 
prudent  utilization  of  local  resources,  and  their  regard  to 
global  needs  for  housing  and  infrastructure  could  continue 
to  bring  to  focus  the  crucial  issues  that  affect  many  parts  of 
the  world  today,  (fig.  4)  While  their  all-encompassing,  clas- 
sificatory  charts  must  be  criticized  for  constructing  regions 
as  bounded,  determinate  and  controllable  objects  of  study, 
they  actively  propelled  a  systematic  investigation  of  the 
limitations  of  the  earth's  resources. 

Indeed,  despite  the  pitfalls  of  modern  environmental 
approaches,  their  larger  aspirations  can  exercise  a  refresh- 
ing critique  against  overzealous  relativizations  of  environ- 
mental problems.  Whether  earlier  efforts  such  as  Doxiades', 


fig  3  Ecumenokepos  or,  Global 
Garden.  Doxiades's  visior)  of  the 
world  in  the  future-  According  to 
Doxiades's  calculations,  most  of  the 
land  on  earth  could  be  available  for 
cultivation  or  could  be  left 
undisturbed  for  "wildlife". 


51 


Ecumenokepos 


Thresholds  14 


Fuller's  or  Carson's  succeeded  or  failed  is  less  important 
now  than  the  fact  that,  like  the  environment  itself,  their 
premises  reach  beyond  the  realm  of  relativity  into  supra- 
political  concerns.  It  is  in  this  spirit  that  modern  environ- 
mental thought  can  offer  critical  orientations  to  current 
environmental  predicaments.  I  would  argue  for  a  radical 
re-evaluation  that  would  negotiate  the  overlaps  between 
the  modern  consciousness  and  current  critical  thought, 
not  so  much  to  regain  the  conviction  of  earlier  move- 
ments, but  to  redirect  the  admirable  energy  and  sophistica- 
tion of  current  critiques  towards  more  effective  directions. 
Current  critical  thought  could  disentangle  environmental 
approaches  fi-om  an  all-encompassing,  universalistic  and 
rationalist  framework  of  thought,  while  the  aspirations  of 
ecological  sensitivity  would  not  be  consumed  by  total  rela- 
tivism. 

To  illustrate  how  the  negotiation  between  current  critiques 
and  earlier  ecological  premises  could  be  constructive, 
consider  once  again.  Slater's  deconstruction  of  "Edenic 
Narratives"  in  Uncommon  Ground  which  has  been  quite 
convincing  is  showing  that: 

"It  is  well  worth  asking  not  just  how  we  can  save  the  rain  forest  but  why 
we  want  to  do  so.  Whom  do  we  wish  to  benefit?  And  why  focus  our 
efforts  on  Amazonia  instead  of  Africa.  Antarctica,  or  Northern  Califor- 
nia? Before  we  try  to  answer  these  essential  questions,  however,  we 


fig  4  One  of  the  projects  of 
Doxiades  Associates  tf)at  utilized 
local  resources  in  an  effort  to 
improve  Sudan's  infrastructure. 


must  ask  what  we  mean  by  'the  rain  forest'.  What  exactly  do  we  think 
we  want  to  safeguard?" 

Consider,  also,  the  leap  from  these  insightful  remarks  to 
the  conclusion  that  immediately  follows  them,  a  leap 
which  threatens  to  nullify  efforts  for  environmental 
protection: 

"It  will  be  hard  enough  to  reverse  the  acrid  course  of  recent  history  in 
Amazonia,  But  it  is  impossible  to  rescue  something  that  does  not  exist"'' 

Indeed,  to  use  Slater's  own  terms,  we  should  not  be  "quick" 
to  call  something  "nature";  but,  neither  should  we  be  so 
quick  in  dismissing  "nature"  as  something  that  does  not 
e.xist.  If  critiques  such  as  Slater's  aim  to  argue  that  environ- 
mental approaches  "impinge... not  just  on  trees  and 
animals  but  on  countless  human  lives"  they  should  do  this 
without  paralyzing  efforts  to  prevent  environmental 
destruction,  because  such  destruction  would  also  impinge 
on  "human  lives."  In  the  case  of  Slater's  argument,  the 
destruction  of  the  Amazon  region  would  affect,  among 
others,  the  Yanomani  Indians  themselves. 

While  any  efforts  to  protect  the  Amazon  region  should 
guard  against  tendencies  to  essentialize  the  traditional 
lifestyle  of  the  Yanomani  Indians  as  an  intrinsic  part  of 
"nature,"  the  ecological  problems  around  the  Amazon 
should  not  themselves  be  entirelv  relativized.  The  need  to 


respond  to  environmental  destruction  should  remain  in 
focus,  even  though  we  should  guard  against  any  attempt  to 
collapse  "protective  measures"  onto  nostalgic  preconcep- 
tions of  a  romantic  "nature"  that  would  treat  local  cultures 
as  voiceless  observers  of  external  environmental  measures 
imposed  on  them.  Environmental  responses  would  need  to 
be  actively  negotiated  with  the  complexities  and  demands 
of  the  local  culture,  engaging  with  the  politics  of  difference 
and  the  fluid  realities  of  "nature"  and  "culture."  The 
complex  actualities  of  difference  would  reinforce,  rather 
than  replace,  ecological  sensitivity. 

What  I  am  arguing  then  is  that  critiques  of  the  modern 
environmental  movement  come  not  as  dismissals  but  as 
extensions  of  it.  In  this  way  environmentalism  could  tran- 
scend relativism,  while  highlighting  the  dangers  of  essen- 
tialism  and  universalism.  Perhaps  the  most  radical 
responses  to  environmental  questions  cannot  emanate 
from  overzealous  rejections  of  an  earlier  environmental 
consciousness,  but  from  a  negotiated  position;  one  which 
operates  "in-between,"  aiming  to  remain  vigilantly  critical 
without  losing  the  capacity  to  act. 

IFrom  the  Journal  Ekistks  208,  March  1973,  p.  114. 

2  Yaakov  Garb.  "Rachel  Carson's  Silent  Spring"  in  Dissent,  Fall 
1995.p.541. 

3  See  William  Cronon,  "Introduction:  In  Search  of  Nature"  and 
"The  Trouble  with  Wilderness"  in  W.  Cronon  ed.  Uncommon 
Ground.  WW.  Norton  &  Company:  New  York  and  London, 
1995. 

4  "Environmentalism"  encompasses  diverse  positions  which  can 
be  intensely  antagonistic  to  one  another.  For  the  purposes  of  this 
essay,  however,  1  use  the  terms  "environmentalism"  and  "envi- 
ronmentalists" in  the  broadest  possible  sense,  to  refer  to  any 
movements,  organized  groups  or  even  individuals  who  are 
actively  concerned  with  environmental  protection. 

5  Carolyn  Merchant,  "Reinventing  Eden:  Western  Culture  as  a 
Recovery  Narrative"  in  Uncommon  Ground,  p.  157. 

6  Ivan  Pedro  de  Martins  captures  very  well  the  context  in  which 
Doxiades  operated:  "...two  aspects  of  knowledge  coincided  in 


the  circles  of  science  and  later  of  policy-making:  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  planet  as  a  container  for  mankind  and  for  the 
resources  that  allow  human  hfe,  and  the  exhaustion  of  certain 
fundamental  products  in  the  foreseeable  future,  a  generation 
hence,  such  as  oil;  a  crisis  that  is  bringing  home  to  millions  a 
sense  of  danger  and  the  eagerness  to  challenge  it  through  a 
rational  approach  to  the  ecological  problem."  (Ivan  Pedro  de 
Martins.  "Random  Factors:  Ekistics,  Ecology  and  a  Think 
Tank:  An  approach  to  Settlement  Planning  from  Doxiades 
Onwards",  in  Third  World  Planning  Review,  Vol.2,  No. 2, 
Autumn  1980.  p.I39) 

7  The  journal  £fc(sfiV5( founded  in  1955  and  still  in  circulation) 
was,  during  the  sixties,  edited  in  Cambridge,  MA  and  circu- 
lated in  94  countries. 

8  Ekistics  attempted  to  combine  numerous  disciplines  in  the 
design  of  human  settlements;  in  addition  to  ecology,  it  took 
into  account  economic,  psychological  and  sociological  factors. 
For  the  purposes  of  this  essay,  however,  I  will  focus  on  those 
aspects  of  the  Ekistic  theory  that  attempted  to  connect  urban 
design  to  ecological  concerns. 

9  Many  of  Doxiades's  ideas  on  this  subject  were  compiled  in 
his  later  book  Ecology  and  Ekistics  ( 1977) 

10  His  plan  of  Islamabad,  for  example — a  plan  which  inserted 
the  Capital  of  Pakistan  into  an  ecologically  conscious  global 
schema — overlooked  the  questions  of  power  and  inequality 
between  the  local  regime  and  the  various  classes  of  the  popu- 
lation. See  Lawrence  Vale,  Architecture,  Power  and  National 
Identity. 

1 1  In  his  restructuring  of  Athens,  for  example,  Doxiades 
claimed  that  his  plan  would  make  the  city  more  efficient  in 
order  to  minimize  the  destruction  of  the  environment 
surrounding  the  city.  People,  he  argued,  should  be  housed 
close  to  their  work-place  in  order  to  minimize  pollution  from 
transportation.  (See  Doxiades,  Our  Capital  and  Its  Future. 
1960)  Yet,  how  was  this  "environmental  concern"  connected  to 
his  decision  to  relocate  lower-class  workers  at  the  industrial 
area  of  Eleusina  and  to  leave  the  privileged  fringes  of  the 
Penteli  mountain  to  the  high  government  officials? 

12  Doxiades's  proposals  also  concealed  larger  cultural  dynam- 
ics: The  insertion  of  the  new  towns  in  Iraq  or  Islamabad  into 
the  megastructure  of  a  global  interconnected  ecosystem 
assumed  a  transcultural  uniformity  in  the  model  of  urbaniza- 
tion, and  did  not  consider  the  questions  of  inequality  and 
cultural  imperialism  in  global  relationships.  Similarly,  Doxi- 
ades never  acknowledged  the  influence  of  western  handing 
institutions  on  his  decisions  to  promote  certain  agricultural 
developments  and  to  abandon  others.  The  universal  claims 
that  Doxiades's  "scientific"  and  "ecological"  approach  made, 
depoliticized  his  interventions  which  were  nevertheless 
inevitably  tied  to  such  issues  as  land  distribution,  allocation  of 
resources,  class  divisions,  and  transcultural  power  dynamics. 

13  Slater,  in  Uncommon  Ground,  p.  1 30. 


NOMMMCMOKM. 


lifo^cda^  ^tttti^^ 


Conservation  campaigns  have 
long  relied  on  photogenic 
animals  or  scenic  beauty  to 
raise  funds,  as  with  these 
Canadian  Wildlife  Federation 
holiday  stamps. 


53 


Thresholds  14 


msi; 


'♦.  * 


*i^ 


ii  ■■','•  V . 


x:? 


^ 


^m'''*»i 


tM* 


Wolf  Lake  Landscape 

Wolf  Lake,  Indiana 


55 


TInrsholdi  14 


56 


I 


Lt.  Petrosino  Park 

Azin  Valy  &  Siizan  Wines 


Our  approach  to  the  design  of  residual  spaces 
in  New  Yorl<  City  celebrates  the  fortuitous  inter- 
actions possible  between  the  city's  diverse 
cultural  climate,  the  spatial  dynamics  of  left 
over  open  space,  and  nature.  Applying  the  flexi- 
bility of  natural  structures  and  systems  to  the 
building  of  public  space  in  the  city,  we  arrive  at 
a  design  which  cultivates  discovery  through  its 
ability  to  adapt  to  seasonal  changes  and  new 
input  from  the  surrounding  community.  The 
park  structure  should  function  like  an  armature 
for  the  expression  of  different  cultural  identities 
and  the  random  flourishing  of  plant  life.  This 
potential  for  transformation  and  evolution 
fosters  a  more  dynamic  and  empowering  rela- 
tionship between  the  inhabitants,  their  urban 
environment,  and  nature. 

These  pnncipals  were  first  developed  in  our  LI 
Petrosino  park  competition  entry  which  was  one 
of  three  winning  proposals.  Final  decision  on  that 
park  is  still  pending  New  York  City  Parks  Depart- 
ment approval.  However,  the  basic  concept  could 
be  adapted  to  any  number  of  pocket  sites  in  New 
York  or  other  cities  with  similar  spatial  and  social 
dynamics.  For  us  the  solution  to  improving  these 
kinds  of  spaces  is  as  much  about  bringing  the 
park  directly  to  the  community  as  bringing  the 
community  to  the  park. 

The  proposed  design  creates  a  programmatic, 
cultural  and  spatial  connection  between  U. 
Petrosino  park  and  its  surroundings.  A  hanging 
garden  extends  from  the  facades  of  the 
surrounding  buildings  to  a  series  of  columns 
within  the  park.  Neighboring  residents  are 
invited  to  participate  directly  from  their 
windows  in  selecting,  growing  and  planting  the 
flowenng  vines  and  ivy  which  constitute  the 
garden.  This  simple  gesture  provides  animated 
patterns  of  light  and  shade  at  street  level,  and  a 
view  of  the  entire  street  through  a  levitating 
tapestry  of  rich  greenery  and  brightly  colored 
flowers  from  the  windows  above. 

The  existing  3500  square  foot  park  is  located  at 
the  intersection  of  Lafayette  and  Kenmare 
streets  at  the  threshold  between  Chinatown, 
Little  Italy  and  Soho.  The  simple  framework  of 
cables  and  columns  also  provides  an  ideal 
structure  for  a  variety  of  community  interven- 
tions. The  Italian  community  may  decorate  the 
columns  and  cables  with  shimmering  lights 


57 


Thresholds  14 


during  the  San  Gennaro  Festival  or  Christmas, 
while  the  Chinese  could  use  the  park  for  hang- 
ing elaborately  colored  lanterns  or  dragons 
during  the  Chinese  New  Year  festivities.  Dunng 
the  summer  local  artists  may  hang  projection 
screens  for  film  and  video  festivals  or  create 
sculptural  works  that  use  the  columns  as  a 
structural  base.  Participation  may  be  as  passive 
as  simply  smelling  the  flowers  at  the  window  or 
as  active  as  designing  special  features  for  park 
events  and  the  customization  of  one's  own 
window  box.  The  design  of  the  structure  and 
landscape  allows  the  park  to  function  like  a 
flexible  extension  of  New  York  City's  urban 
fabric,  incorporating  a  variety  of  diverse  contri- 
butions into  an  ever-changing  collage  of  city 
culture  and  vegetation. 

By  using  the  sky  plane  as  a  garden,  the  design 
reduces  noise  and  air  pollution  to  the 
surrounding  residences  and  puts  planting  out 
of  the  reach  of  vandals,  allowing  for  an  open 
rather  than  a  gated  and  locked  communal 
garden  as  Is  typical  of  New  York  City.  Spatially 
the  pergola  serves  to  Integrate  the  streets,  side- 
walks and  building  facades  into  the  park,  creat- 
ing a  kind  of  giant  exterior  room  whose  walls, 
floor,  and  celling  are  alive  with  the  energy  of 
the  community.  Within  the  park,  areas  for  seat- 
ing, playing  and  entertainment  are  integrated 
Into  a  playful  unfolding  landscape  of  paving, 
planting  and  water  that  inspires  joy  and  inter- 
action between  people  and  the  parkscape  itself. 
This  is  a  living  park,  transformed  each  season 
by  the  Imagination  of  its  users. 


59 


Thresholds  14 


Passages  Some  Notes  on  the  Fusion  of 
Buildings  and  Landscape 

James  Wines 


From  an  ecological  perspective,  mainstream  architecture  and 
landscape  architecture  for  the  past  two  decades  have  sent  out 
mostly  confusing  messages.  The  values  communicated  to  urban 
du-eUers  seem  to  endorse  a  discard  attitude  toward  nature  and  a 
view  that  "the  earth"  is  a  place  where  one  drives  to  on  the  week- 
end; but,  upon  return  to  the  city,  never  associates  with  the  design 
of  buUdings  and  spaces,  or  the  serious  enterprises  of  daily  life. 

As  a  result  of  designers'  obsessive  commitment  to  this  century's 
earlier  industrial/technological  dream,  the  relationship  between 
buildings  and  landscape  is  still  dominated  by  the  formalist  tradi- 
tions of  early  Modernist  design — meaning  that  the  edifice  is  seen 
as  the  star  and  vegetation  is  treated  as  peripheral  decor.  There 
seems  to  be  a  paranoid  fear  among  architects  that  foliage  might 
upstage  the  buUding.  In  visual  terms,  this  phobia  usually  results  in 
a  rigid  and  separatist  compositional  hierarchy;  where  architecture 
is  regarded  as  a  kind  of  centerpiece  sculpture  and  landscaping  is 
reduced  to  a  girdle  of  lolly'pop  trees.  This  attitude  has  taken  a 
negative  toll  on  urban  aesthetic;  but,  more  irrationally,  it  has  been 
bad  for  business  and  even  worse  for  community  well-being.  The 
bottom  line  is  simply  that  abundant  garden  spaces  attract  people 
to  linger  in  city  centers,  thus  improving  commerce.  From  a  health 
standpoint,  one  tree  absorbs  26  pounds  of  carbon  dioxide  and  this 
means  four  people  can  breathe.  In  large  part,  a  city's  fundamental 
quality  of  life  can  be  determined  by  an  equation  between  the 
number  of  people  and  a  proportional  quantity  of  trees. 


During  the  past  few  years,  it  has  become  increasingly 
apparent  that  architecture  is  desperately  in  need  of  a 
reunion  with  the  natural  environment  and  a  total  re- 
evaluation  of  its  conceptual,  philosophical,  and 
aesthetic  priorities  over  the  next  decade.  This  does 
not  simply  mean  more  urban  greening  and  conserva- 
tion efforts — although  these  are  obviously  urgent 
issues — but,  more  importantly,  it  indicates  the  neces- 
sity for  a  radically  increased  awareness  of  the  "inte- 
grated systems"  found  in  nature  and  the  capacity  to 
interpret  them  from  a  contextual  and  artistic  perspec- 
tive. All  of  the  building  arts  today  should  connect  in 
some  physical  and  iconographic  way  to  a  new  green 
sensibility.  This  suggests  a  response  to  social,  psycho- 
logical, cultural,  topographical,  as  well  as  botanical, 
influences.  It  also  proposes  the  development  of  an 
expanded  definition  of  "environmental  thinking"  over 
the  next  decade. 

It  seems  inevitable  that  architecture  must  exchange  its 
roots  in  Modernist  and  Constructivist  design,  abstract 
art,  and  Industrial  Age  imagery  for  a  more  open 
ended  visual  language,  consistent  with  the  emerging 
Age  of  Information  and  Ecology.  For  example, 
people's  reflex  reactions  to  contemporary  life  have 
been  shaped  by  a  pervasive  "ambient  sensibility," 


created  by  television,  cinema,  computer  science,  and 
an  awareness  of  the  consequences  of  environmental 
destruction.  This  consensus  is  a  natural  generator  of 
subHminal  references  that  have  little  in  common  with 
the  industrial  and  technological  sources  that  shaped 
early  Modern  Design.  As  a  result,  it  appears  logical 
that  buildings  and  their  adjoining  spaces  should  no 
longer  be  conceived  strictly  from  the  standpoint  of 
form,  space,  and  structure;  but,  instead,  change  the 
emphasis  to  narrative  and  environmental  associations. 
In  this  way,  architecture  can  deal  more  directly  with 
new  sources  of  content,  a  higher  level  of  eco- 
consciousness,  and  a  greater  responsibility  to  earth- 
related  issues.  This  shift  of  focus  from  physical/ 
hermetic  to  mental/environmental  seems  consistent 
with  both  the  informational  and  ecological  revolu- 
tions. It  also  opens  up  the  building  arts  and  landscape 
design  to  a  range  of  options  that  have  been  closed  off 
for  most  of  this  century. 


Thresholds  14 


ID 

E 


62 


Max  Reinhardt  Haus, 
Eisenman  Architects 


Currently,  a  great  deal  of  post-Structuralist  philoso- 
phy in  architecture  is  turning  away  from  references  to 
deconstruction  and  chaos  theory,  in  favor  of  "inte- 
grated systems"  that  could  be  considered  more  in 
concert  with  the  so-called  information  highway  and 
ecology  movement.  One  recent  direction,  referred  to 
as  "folding,"  is  being  described  with  such  terms  as 
"pliancy,  continuous  and  heterogeneous  systems,  fluid 
transformations,  and  smooth  mixtures  of  disparate 
elements."  While  some  of  this  dialogue  seems  to 
suggest  a  renewed  sympathy  for  the  organic  architec- 
ture of  Frank  Lloyd  Wright,  the  actual  manifestations 
in  built  and  model  form  (unlike  Wright)  tend  to  treat 
the  surrounding  environment  as  an  alien  territory, 
generally  populated  by  a  grid  of  trees  that  bear  little 
or  no  reference  to  the  centerpiece  building.  Folding  in 
architecture  is  typically  characterized  by  formal  exer- 
cises in  the  use  of  warped  planar  surfaces  to  alter 
conventional  relationships  between  exterior  and  inte- 
rior. Whatever  its  claims  for  "pliancy  and  fluidity" — 
the  folded  buUding  still  remains  a  familiar  isolated 
object  that  can  be  readily  photographed  apart  from  its 
context,  without  a  loss  of  meaning. 

While  some  of  the  propositions  of  folding  in  architec- 
ture appear  to  be  in  accord  with  the  new  eco-sensibil- 
ity,  there  is  no  real  "earth  awareness"  or  intent  to  fuse 


structure  with  context  implied  in  its  objectives.  In 
fact,  there  are  no  references  to  even  the  most  elemen- 
tary responsibilities  of  conservation  technology  and 
sustainable  design.  Instead,  like  the  appropriation  of 
deconstruction  as  an  apology  for  neo-constructivist 
stylistic  tendencies,  folding  seems  to  be  one  more 
e.xtension  of  twentieth  century  orthodox  formalism; 
its  representative  examples  are  very  much  a  part  of 
the  tradition  of  early  Constructivism  and  the  notion 
that  a  building  must  always  be  some  form  of  abstract 
sculpture — in  this  case,  comparable  to  a  kind  of 
architectural  origami. 

One  interesting  linguistic  contribution  of  folding  in 
architecture  is  an  expansion  of  the  meaning  of  "infor- 
mation" to  "in-Formation,"  which  implies  a  fusion  of 
both  the  transmission  of  data  and  the  developmental 
process  of  shaping  ideas.  This  thought  leads  direcdy 
to  the  main  focus  here,  the  interpretation  of  architec- 
ture as  a  system  of  "passages."  It  is  a  concept  that  links 
buildings,  landscape,  and  elements  of  social/contex- 
tual/environmental communication.  Edifices  designed 
on  strictly  formal  terms  and  then  plunked  down  to 
await  a  bracelet  of  peripheral  vegetation  tend  to 
remain  static  and  insular.  Buildings  conceived  as  inte- 
grations of  structure  and  landscape  are  mutable, 


metamorphic,  and  evolutionary,  constantly  conveying 
new  levels  of  information. 

One  way  of  looking  at  the  integration  of  architecture 
and  landscape  architecture  might  be  based,  in  part,  on 
an  observation  about  television.  The  TV  set  in  one's 
living  room  is  seldom  regarded  as  anything  more  than 
a  generic  artifact  for  receiving  and  disseminating  elec- 
tronically generated  images.  Usually  a  viewer  does  not 
even  notice  the  physical  receptacle  as  an  example  of 
good  or  bad  design,  nor  as  an  important  object  of 
furniture  (although  it  can  obviously  be  both).  Instead, 
the  importance  of  the  ubiquitous  box  is  its  capacity  to 
process  information.  Applying  the  same  principles  to 
a  building  in  relation  to  its  context — and  offering  a 
way  of  breaking  free  from  the  strictly  formalist  inter- 
pretation of  architecture — it  is  more  productive  to 
shift  the  aesthetic  focus  of  a  building  to  its  capacity  to 
absorb  and  transmit  messages.  This  suggests  that 
walls,  instead  of  being  seen  mainly  as  barriers  of 
enclosure  or  compositional  elements,  can  serve  as 
information-filtering  partitions  (or  points  of  passage) 
that  fuse  and  dissolve  traditional  inside/outside  rela- 
tionships and  incorporate  narrative  commentary. 
There  is  nothing  new  about  the  idea  of  walls  deliver- 
ing messages — all  of  the  Medieval  and  Renaissance 
churches  and  civic  buildings  of  Europe  were  based  on 


walls  for  Saudi  Arabian  National 
Museum  project 

[top)  tile  and  ceramic  walls 

[middle]  perforated  metal 
exhibition  wall 

(bottom}  banded  walls  with 
various  materials 


63 


Thresholds  14 


this  objective — but,  its  radical  appeal  today  derives 
from  an  opposition  to  conventional  architectural 
geometry  and  the  rich  potential  to  establish  landscape 
and  environmental  awareness  as  leading  forces  of 
change  in  response  to  the  new  Age  of  Ecology. 

The  interpretation  of  passages  is  infinitely  variable 
and  should  not  be  considered  as  any  kind  of  design 
formula.  Basically,  the  concept  proposes  that  walls  and 
floor  planes  in  a  building  should  be  seen  as  fluid, 
contextually  responsive  membranes,  converting  the 
measure  of  aesthetic  quality  in  architecture  from  eval- 
uations of  formal  design  to  how  well  a  structure 
reflects  and  engages  various  aspects  of  landscape, 
regional  identity,  topography,  and  cultural  references. 
In  orthodox  Modernist/Constructivist  architecture, 
walls  are  usually  treated  as  functional/sculptural 
elements  that  have  an  aesthetic  significance  derived 
from  abstract  art  and  are  contained  by  the  clearly 
defined  perimeters  of  a  floor  plan.  Walls  as  passages 
can  appear  to  defy  the  plan  and  range  in  physicality 
and  purpose  from  indeterminate  ribbons  of  transition 
in  space  to  monitors  of  social/environmental  change. 

In  terms  of  architectural  construction,  the  concept  of 
passages  proposes  that  plant  life  and  earth  elements 
should  be  as  much  a  part  of  the  physical  substance  of 
shelter  as  conventional  building  materials.  From  an 


aesthetic  standpoint,  the  objective  is  to  look  at  the 
fusion  of  structure  and  landscape  as  a  kind  of  interac- 
tive, biographical  dialogue.  When  translated  into  a 
visual  imagery,  it  describes  their  mutual  origins  in 
nature.  This  entire  direction  in  design  suggests  the 
development  of  new  paradigms  in  the  building  arts 
that  are  based  on  ecological  models. 

But  there  here  are  also  obstacles  to  this  objective. 
Since  our  society  has  no  collectively  shared  cosmology 
or  religious  associations  with  nature — of  the  kind,  for 
example,  that  built  the  Celtic  monuments  of  Wiltshire 
or  rock  cut  temples  of  Ajanta — designers  of  today's 
environment  cannot  rely  on  a  consensus  iconography 
for  communication.  At  the  same  time,  the  earth  and 
sun  are  still  universal  symbols  and  the  global  aware- 
ness of  ecology  has  become  a  motivating  psychologi- 
cal force  in  the  development  of  a  post-industrial 
version  of  Jung's  "collective  unconscious."  In  this 
context,  landscape  becomes  the  world's  most  potent 
source  of  symbolism. 

Whereas  the  term  folding  in  architecture  seems  to 
suggest  a  design  process  of  methodical,  geometry- 
driven,  formal  strategies;  the  notion  of  passages  is 
intended  to  describe  a  mutational,  organic,  and  infor- 
mal set  of  connections  between  buildings  and  land- 
scape. For  example,  this  concept  might  take  the  form 
of  a  series  of  lateral,  informational  walls  that  can  be 
distributed  over  a  land  parcel  in  both  an  orderly  and 
random  way,  allowing  roof  structures  and  the 
surrounding  context  to  casually  bridge  and/or  pene- 
trate the  spaces  between  the  partitions.  This  approach 
creates  great  flexibility  in  the  orientation  of  sheltered 
services,  as  the  covered  areas  can  be  distributed  arbi- 
trarily Taken  to  its  potential  artistic  extreme,  it  can 
completely  break  down  the  established  definition  of 
where  architecture  begins  and  landscape  leaves  off 


One  major  problem  is  trying  to  apply  the  theory  of 
passages  to  a  standard  formula  for  highrise  architec- 
ture. When  the  cost  of  real  estate  is  the  determining 
factor  in  ecological  and  aesthetic  decisions,  the  idea  of 
an  office  tower  as  the  product  of  such  nature-oriented 
design  features  as  "fluidity,  indeterminacy,  and 
chance"  is  hard  to  sell.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  the 
possibility  of  interpreting  large  civic  structures  as 
heavily  vegetated  microcosms  of  their  regions — 
taking  cues  from  the  Japanese  concept  of  "borrowed 
scenery" — where  they  become  tableaux  of  other 
places,  or  contemporary  equivalents  of  the  Gardens  of 
Babylon.  As  a  footnote  to  this  issue  of  highrise 
construction,  there  is  now  a  question  of  the  viability 
of  skyscrapers,  since  this  building  type  has  generally 
proven  to  be  the  most  anti-ecological  in  terms  of  its 
use  of  resources  and  choice  of  construction  technol- 
ogy. In  fact,  environmental  protection  laws  may  ulti- 
mately prohibit  all  high  rise  development  in  favor  of 
lower  height  and  clustered  buildings,  or  mostly 
underground  architecture. 

Passages  is  a  theory  endeavoring  to  chart  a  carto- 
graphical route  through  new  and  sometimes  conflict- 
ing territories.  While  there  is  plenty  of  platitudinous 
rhetoric  now  advocating  integrated  systems,  the 
evidence  on  a  vast  majority  of  architects'  and  land- 
scape architects'  drawing  boards  reflects  the  same 
scenario  of  two  cautious  protagonists  publicly 
professing  a  sympathy  for  collaboration;  but,  behind 
the  scenes,  jockeying  for  a  position  of  aesthetic 
supremacy.  Hopefully,  by  using  the  notion  of  passages 
as  a  critical  tool  and  premise  for  revised  thinking 
about  the  relationship  between  architecture  and  land- 
scape, it  can  be  viewed  as  a  means  of  reversing  anti- 
ecological  and  unproductive  conventions  in  the 
building  arts. 


The  present  Age  of  Ecology  is,  like  the  spirit  of 
passages,  a  critical  point  of  transition  and  connection. 
It  has  arrived  for  some  architects  and  landscape  archi- 
tects like  a  plague  on  the  conscience,  threatening 
entrenched  beliefs,  stylistic  preferences,  and  routine 
work  habits.  For  others,  it  has  become  the  revolution- 
ary and  resource-saving  opportunity  to  develop  new 
technologies  in  the  name  of  environmental  advocacy. 
For  more  contemplative  designers,  it  has  been  seen  as 
the  beginning  of  a  deeper  awareness  of  the  earth  and  a 
cause  for  re-thinking  the  relationships  between  archi- 
tecture and  landscape  by  blending  art,  philosophy, 
technology,  and  the  lessons  of  nature's  integrated 
systems.  While  this  third  group  is  potentially  the  most 
productive,  the  challenges  it  faces  are  daunting.  It 
means  confronting — and  probably  having  to  ulti- 
mately embrace — concepts  that  endanger  the  institu- 
tional frameworks  of  religion,  economy,  and  politics, 
not  to  mention  most  things  the  building  arts  have 
been  about  for  the  last  100  years. 

For  example,  the  most  disturbing  of  these  questions 
gnaw  at  the  roots  of  cultural  and  theological  develop- 
ment since  the  birth  of  the  world's  dominant  reli- 
gions. How  are  we  expected  to  evaluate  and  reconcile 


65 


Tliresholds  14 


the  environmental  success  of  so  many  multi-theistic 
ancient  and  Aboriginal  civilizations — when  each 
element  of  nature  was  identified  by  its  own  divine 
spirit — versus  the  dominant  mono-theism  of  today 
where  an  all-embracing  (male)  God  is  proclaimed  in 
the  human  image  and  the  destruction  of  the  earth  is 
viewed  as  a  privilege  of  Man's  sovereignty  over 
nature?  There  is  substantial  evidence  that  a  distribu- 
tion of  responsibility  among  multiple  gods  (of  both 
male  and  female  gender)  related  to  the  sun,  rain,  soil, 
rivers,  crops,  etc.  has  been  a  far  more  productive  theo- 
logical vision,  both  ecologically  and  agriculturally, 
than  the  despotic  ego-centrism  associated  with  a 
single  deity  and  the  myopic  delusions  of  "nature  for 
Man's  convenience." 

Another  question  is  why  twentieth  century  philosophy 
and  linguistic  studies  have  produced  so  few  persuasive 
voices  whose  sources  of  signs  and  symbols  have  been 
drawn  from  the  natural  environment?  Instead,  the 
majority  of  leading  theoreticians  have  scavenged 
through  the  cacophony  of  pop  billboards,  the  fetishes 
of  fast-food  psychology,  and  the  digitalized  rituals  of 
consumer  culture  (actually,  the  shallowest  elements  of 
surface  structure)  that  block  the  access  to 
nature...  while  ignoring  the  richness  of  earth-centered 
symbolism  that  lies  behind  this  junk  world  detritus. 


computer  model,  Saudi  Arabian 
National  Museum 

Where,  one  asks,  are  the  theoreticians  and  interpreters 
of  an  evolving  eco-language?  Where  is  the  Baudrillard, 
Lacan,  Foucault,  Levi-Strauss,  Barthes,  Saussure,  or 
Lyotard  of  a  new  "terrestrial  signification?" 

Rather  than  address  such  broad-based  philosophical 
questions,  much  of  the  ecologically  motivated  work 
today — credited  as  being  sustainable — is  nothing 
more  than  a  catalogue  checklist  of  routine  environ- 
mental technology  and  land  conservation  programs 
tacked  onto  otherwise  conventionally  designed  build- 
ings and  landscapes.  The  green  mission  is  essential, 
the  intentions  are  admirable;  yet,  the  results  are 
boring.  A  more  convincing  approach  to  the  fusion  of 
architecture  and  vegetation  should  demonstrate  an 
aesthetic  commitment  to  the  translation  of  nature's 
model  of  "integrated  systems"  into  innovative  visual 
realizations.  The  secret  now  in  the  building  arts  is  to 
recover  those  fragile  threads  of  "connectedness"  to  the 
earth  that  have  been  lost  for  most  of  this  century.  The 
archetypal  precedents  for  this  approach  can  be  found 
in  all  of  those  contextuaUy  harmonious  ancient  cities 
of  the  Middle  East,  Africa,  and  Asia,  where  shelter  in 
concert  with  nature  has  maintained  its  beauty  and 
symbolic  presence  over  the  centuries  by  converting  a 
combination  of  sustainability,  landscape,  and 
communicative  iconography  into  high  art.  In  our 


present  Age  of  Information  and  Ecology,  these  exam- 
ples have  never  been  more  relevant.  Clearly,  the  inter- 
active dialogue  between  architecture  and  landscape  is 
an  art,  as  vieU  as  an  ecological,  imperative. 


renderings  from  SITE'S  Saudi  Arabian 
National  Museum  project  of  1996  in 
Riyadh,  Saudi  Arabia  for  the  Arriyadh 
Development  Corporation 


67 


TIjyesholds  14 


mm^^^i^ 


Thresholds  14 


^^1»roi 


ijectiles 


Mark  Bain 


The  Dream 


The  Projectiles  project  is  an  investigation  into  the  possibilities  for  active  engage- 
ment with  the  built  forms  of  the  urban  landscape.  The  goal  is  to  design  small 
scale  devices  which  attach  to  the  exteriors  of  preexisting  structures,  inhabit  their 
surface  and  exert  influence  on  it.  The  title  is  suggestive  of  the  aggress  involved  in 
the  act  of  placing  these  "agents  of  change." 

This  project  was  partially  inspired  by  an  investigation  I  made  during  May  of 
1996  in  East  Berlin  where  building  facades  still  bare  the  marks  of  war.  These 
marks  reveal  a  certain  revulsion  towards  a  last  stronghold,  a  form  of  man  made 
erosion  agitating  the  structure  of  the  city.  Decay  is  constant,  a  recomposing  of 
molecules  in  continual  breakdown.  War  acts  similarly,  only  through  acceleration. 

In  opposition  to  this  rule  of  erosion,  the  traditional  practice  of  architecture 
stands  for  the  most  part  as  a  strictly  additive  procedure;  a  technique  of  engaging 
the  environment  with  the  fabrications  of  the  manmade.  This  act  of  building  in  a 

sense  takes  on  a  certain  literal  aspect  of 
its  own.  The  practice  of  addition  and 
the  impulse  to  construct  is  an  obvious 
target  for  change.  By  inverting  the 
conventional  idea  of  production,  the 
action  reconfigures  to  become  an  exer- 
cise of  removal  or  anti-production.  It  is 
in    this    process   of  subtraction    and 


16mm  film  still  showing  a  house 
and  the  effect  of  bactena  acting 
on  the  emulsion  surface.  From  a 
work  in  progress  by  filmmaker 
Louise  Bourque. 


aerial  map  tracing  possible 
sites  for  intervention  based  on 
existing  chemical  transforma- 
tion already  taking  place  in  the 
"shadow"  of  mdustrial  fallout, 
outlined  here  by  a  square 


i 


unbuilding,  whether  controlled  or  uncontrolled, 
which  becomes  an  interesting  area  of  research. 

The  ideal  would  be  the  middle  ground,  a  hybrid 
technique  where  additive  and  subtractive 
processes  act  together  in  a  symbiotic  relation  of 
degeneration  and  regeneration.  Perhaps  an  area 
where  the  architect  and  user  could  collaborate. 
Where  buildings  appear  and  disappear,  becoming 
forms  of  permutation  and  progression  unified  in 
relation  to  their  use  and  the  surrounding  ecology. 
In  a  sense  this  is  the  present  state  of  the  building 
practice,  only  instead  of  a  process  of  action  within 
the  existing  constructs,  the  city  yields  to  the  fiscal 
interests  of  complete  annihilation,  the  old 
dissolved  into  the  new.  After  more  than  fifty  years 
of  preserved  history,  Berlin's  rebirth  triggers  the 
erasure  of  a  past. 


strangler  fig  enwrapping  host 
tree,  which  will  eventually  die 
leaving  its  void  in  the  fig's  form 


71 


Thresholds  14 


CO 
CQ 


72 


The  Tools 

The  techniques  of  engagement  researched  for  this  project  began  with  the  fabri- 
cation of  simple  devices  made  to  be  propelled  by  the  user  and  connect  to  the 
intended  structures.  The  first  object  was  a  star  shape  design  of  hardened  steel 
which,  after  being  implanted,  would  slowly  oxidize  and  stain  the  surface  of 
building.  Following  this  initial  model,  new  designs  were  produced.  These  incor- 
porated magnetic  material  to  facilitate  attachment  on  metallic  surfaces  and 
dagger  shapes  containing  powder  charges  to  aid  the  connection  to  masonry. 
These  implements,  specifically  programmed  to  carry  out  a  determined  long 
term  function,  included  various  additions  to  aid  in  their  effectiveness  such  as 
solar-mechanical  actuators,  copper/magnesium  charges,  radio  beacons,  anti- 
material  polymers,  acids,  and  biological  specimens.  The  small  size  of  these 
devices,  making  detection  difficult,  allows  the  potential  of  proliferation  and 
accumulation.  If  ever  discovered  and  removed,  these  delivery  vehicles  will  still 
have  triggered  the  reformative  process. 

The  current  stage  of  the  design  has  led  to  smaller  sized  delivery  packages 
coupled  with  a  more  powerful  projection  tool.  This  involves  the  use  of  a  high 
pressure  air  gun  and  20mm  sealed  soft  gelatin  capsules  similar  to  those  manu- 
factured for  drug  delivery  systems.  All  the  ingredients  needed  for  developing  a 
micro-climate  have  been  placed  inside  these  "softgels."  Growth  mediums  such  as 
agar,  nutrients,  spores  and  seeds  are  contained  in  a  single  gel  sphere.  When  fired 
at  the  intended  target,  the  projectile,  travelling  at  over  300  feet  per  second, 
impacts  the  surface  of  the  building  and  breaks  open,  releasing  its  contents  and 
creating  a  splattered  area  of  approximately  six  to  ten  inches  in  diameter.  Bacte- 
ria, mold,  fungi,  algae,  lichen,  moss,  cacti,  ivy  and  other  hardy  species  of  living 
organisms  infiltrate  the  surfaces  of  structures,  penetrating  an  otherwise  barren 
vertical  landscape.  This  aspect  of  terra-forming  (perhaps  also  seen  as  terror- 
forming)  is  intended  to  actively  engage  the  host  structure  with  small  scale 
ecosystems  that  survive  through  atmospheric  nourishment  and  slow  dissolution 
of  the  material  structure  of  the  building. 


Star  object  embedded  Into  the 
exterior  wall  surface  of  MITs 
building  N-51.  275  Massachu- 
\^x^^      setts  Avenue,  Cambridge. 


t 


PROJECTILES 

attack  structures  for  subtraclive  removal  of  existing 
built  forms 

contagion  imbedded  into  external  attachments 

seeding  stmctuiywkh^outsijde  ig^ence 


imposing  will  on  anothers  imposition 

slow  acting  cluster  bombs 

the  propagation  of  a  subtractive  architecture 

the  possibilities  for  external  sensing 

electronic  eyes  and  ears 

live  cultures 

nodal  points 

beacon 


Tool  kit  showing  air  guti. 
magazine  clip,  capsule  pellets, 
dagger  points,  and  star 


Predicting  Ruination 

Mark  Bain's  Projectile  project  punctuates 
the  revolutionary  history  of  anti-architecture 
that  includes  Acconci,  Archigram,  Christo, 
Coop  Himmelblau,  IVIatta  Clark,  Smithson 
and  Wodiczko,  among  others.  His  projec- 
tiles close  out  this  historical  project,  diffus- 
ing its  reactive  violence  with  the  proposition 
of  a  weapon  system  that  ultimately  fails  to 
demonstrate  the  full  spectacle  of  denota- 
tion. His  small  punctures  and  splatters  and 
the  subsequent  virus-like  processes  they 
inject  into  their  architectural  targets,  repre- 
sent a  new  scale  and  methodology  of  dese- 
cration, marking  the  terminus  of  our 
mythologies  of  permanence.  Slowly 
released  over  time.  Bain's  injected  cultures 
of  degeneration  acknowledge  the  waning 
effectiveness  of  "response  time"  in  an  over- 
loaded information  based  society  where 
political  targets  have  become  more  difficult, 
if  not  impossible  to  identify. 

The  radicality  of  this  project  consists  of  a 
series  of  decreasing  and  comparative  accel- 
erations that  liberate  time.  The  initial  speed 
of  the  projectiles  is  countered  by  the  slower 
processes  of  decay  that  they  inject  into  the 
architectural  surfaces  under  attack.  These, 


in  turn,  frame  the  even  slower  degeneration 
processes  already  in  play  in  the  real  time  life 
of  the  architecture.  Through  this  last  trans- 
formation Bain's  interventions  approach 
tainted  prophecy.  They  "image"  the  future, 
predicting  ruination  through  the  slightest 
window  of  participation. 

The  seeming  violence  of  this  project  lies 
elsewhere,  in  those  stoic,  unblemished 
architectural  surfaces,  those  "missed"  sites 
at  the  limit  of  Bain's  "strikes."  Acts  of  accel- 
eration can  never  be  liberated  from  what 
they  leave  behind:  the  arrogance  of  architec- 
ture, a  ruin  holding  off  time. 

-Dennis  Adams. 
Professor  of  Visual  Studies,  MIT 


73 


Thresholds  14 


Calumet  Canal 

South  Chicago,  Illinois 


75 


TTiresholds  14 


Corporeal  Consciousness  & 

The  Permeability  off  Space 

Bath  House 
Master's  thesis 

Aspasia  Maheras 


The  economic  structure  of  our  society  requires  that  people 
work  long  hours,  leading  to  increasingly  stressful  lives  with 
few  outlets  for  the  rejuvenation  of  the  mind  and  body.  As  a 
society  we  have  focused  on  acquisition  and  competition. 
Our  material  possessions  have  take  precedence  over  our 
identities.  We  are  disconnected  from  our  bodies  and 
minds,  and  on  the  occasion  where  the  spirit  is  willing  there 
is  no  outlet.  Within  the  urban  environment,  places  that 
offer  tranquility,  rest  and  relaxation  are  limited.  This  thesis 
explores  architecture  as  a  means  of  allowing  the  visitor  to 
enter  the  realms  of  relaxation,  contemplation,  and  rejuve- 
nation both  physically  and  mentally.  My  intention  is  to 
create  a  series  of  spaces  where  the  experience  promotes  an 
understanding  of  the  body's  relationship  to  the  mind  and 
the  environment. 

I  have  chosen  a  bath  house  to  exemplify  this. 

Historically,  the  bath  house  has  offered  a  ritual  that  fiilfills 
the  needs  of  the  body,  mind  and  spirit.  In  many  countries, 
bath  houses  continue  to  offer  social  interaction  and  relax- 
ation. However,  placing  a  bath  house  in  the  United  States 
inherently  contains  many  issues  besides  the  experiences 
specifically  designed  for  rejuvenation.  It  engages  not  only 
our  society's  image  of  the  bath  house  but  more  fundamen- 
tally also  a  collective  understanding  of  our  own  bodies. 


"Man  articulates  the  world  through  his  body... man 
is  not  a  dualistic  being  whom  spirit  and  flesh  are 
essentially  distinct,  but  a  living  corporeal  being, 
active  in  the  world." 

Tadao  Ando 


The  body  is  not  part  of  nature, 
but  rather,  it  is  sexualized,  ?^ 
popularized 

by  the  media. 


*« 


77 


1  urcsijoias  14 


"The  role  that  bathing  plays  within  a  culture 
reveals  the  culture's  attitude  toward  human 
relaxation.  It  is  a  measure  of  how  far  individual 
well-being  is  regarded  as  an  indispensable  part  of 
community  life." 

— Sigfried  Giedion 


In  our  repressive  culture  the  body  is  considered  taboo — it 
must  be  covered  up  and  hidden.  The  body  is  not  viewed  as  a 
part  of  nature,  but  rather,  it  is  sexualized,  popularized  by  the 
media.  The  bath  house  is  steeped  in  rich  social  history  in 
many  countries.  But  here  in  the  United  States,  the  history  of 
the  bath  house  began  as  a  way  to  mentally  and  physically 
cleanse  the  poor  in  the  late  19th  and  early  20th  centuries. 
More  recently,  during  the  1970's  and  early  1980's,  the  bath 
house  was  considered  by  some  the  playground  for  homosex- 
ual promiscuity  before  the  AIDS  epidemic.  Thus,  for  many 
the  bath  house  today  remains  decadent  and  disreputable. 

The  site  is  New  York  City's  Lower  East  Side,  specifically 
between  258  10th  Street  and  417  9th  Street.  Together  these 
addresses  make  up  a  lot  that  is  25  feet  by  200  feet.  This 
particular  location  has  the  potential  to  serve  different  classes 
and  cultures.  Presently,  a  Turkish  and  Russian  bath  house 
exists  at  258  10th  Street.  However,  it  remains  dense  and  dark, 
like  its  surroundings. 

Inserting  a  bath  house  into  a  densely  populated  urban  envi- 
ronment allows  it  to  become  an  easily  accessible  part  of  the 
community,  with  entrances  on  both  sides  of  the  block.  The 
new  bath  house  is  a  public  facility,  maintained  and  operated 
by  a  private  foundation. 


model  photos  show  views  to 
massage  room  [above  top),  e 
(above  bottom)  and  cafe  (ngt 

longitudinal  section  drawing 


We  become  regularly  disconnected  from  our 


bodies  and  minds, 

and  on  the  occasion  where  the 
spirit  is  willing  must  find  an  outlet. 


Thresholds  14 


Corporeal  consciousness  indicates 


i 


a  simultaneous  awareness  of 


both  Bduy  and  mind. 


jfa- 


81 


Thresholds  14 


authors 

Paul  Carter  is  Senior  Research  Fellow.  University  of  Melbourne  and  Adjunct  Professor.  Faculty  of  Constructed  Environment  Royal 
Melbourne  Institute  of  Technology.  He  Is  author  of  The  Road  to  Botany  Bay  (Knopf,  1988]  and  most  recently  The  Lie  of  the 
Land  (Faber  &  Faber.  1996]. 

Charies  Anderson  is  an  artist.  His  solo  work  is  currently  exhibited  in  Melbourne.  Brisbane  and  Tokyo.  He  specializes  in  collabora- 
tions that  critically  intervene  to  reformulate  the  temporal  and  spatial  hierarchies  that  characterize  interior  and  urban  design. 
His  dis/appearance  collaboration  with  Paul  Carter  commenced  in  1989. 

B2  Ignasi  de  Sola-Morales  is  professor  of  history  and  theory  at  the  Barcelona  School  of  Architecture 

Christine  McGrath  completed  her  Master  of  Architecture  degree  at  MIT  in  February  of  1997.  Previously  she  received  a  Bachelor 
of  Science  in  Architectural  Studies  from  the  University  of  Illinois  at  Urbana-Champaign  in  1994. 

James  K.  Casper  completed  his  Master  of  Architecture  degree  at  MIT  in  February  of  1997.  Previously,  he  received  a  Bachelor  of 
Science  in  Environmental  Design  from  the  University  of  Oklahoma  in  1993. 

Kristina  Hill  is  a  Planning  Professor  at  MIT. 

Panayiota  Pyla  is  a  current  degree  candidate  for  a  Ph.D.  in  History.  Theory  and  Criticism  of  Art  and  Architecture  at  MIT 

Azin  Valy  and  Suzan  Wines  are  both  graduates  of  The  Cooper  Union  School  of  Architecture.  They  recently  formed  a  partnership 
called  l-Beam  Design  in  New  York  City. 

James  Wines  is  President  of  SITE  (Sculpture  in  the  Environment]  Environmental  Design  in  New  Yori<City. 

Mark  Bain  is  an  artist  living  in  the  Boston  area  whose  work  incorporates  a  variety  of  scales  and  mediums.  Currently  he  is  a  degree 
candidate  for  a  M.S.  in  Visual  Studies  offered  through  the  visual  arts  department  at  MIT.  He  can  be  contacted  through 
simulux@mitedu. 

Aspasia  Maheras  completed  her  Master  of  Architecture  degree  at  MIT  in  February  of  1997  Previously,  she  received  a  Bachelor  of 
Fine  Arts  from  Massachusetts  College  of  Art  in  1991. 

Phillip  Jones  is  a  painter  and  photographer  based  in  Somerville,  Massachusetts.  His  photographs  in  the  Industrial  Nocturnes  series 

were  recently  exhibited  in  a  solo  show  in  Boston. 


photo  credits 

p  19  photo  by  Lewis  Baltz,  "Alton  Road  at  Murphy  Road  looking  towards  Newport  Center." 

p  20  Toyo  Ito,  Shanghai. 

p  21  interchange  in  Toronto  photo  by  Lockwood  Survey  Corporation  Ltd. 

Shinchi  Ogawa,  rest  stop, 

p  22  Zahera  Foring  Office,  terminal  Yokohama. 

Jean  Nouvel,  Fachada  Galerias  Lafayette,  Berlin. 

p  23  photo  by  David  Plowden,  "East  of  the  Loop." 

p  25  photo  by  Jannes  Linders. 

p  34  hurricane  from  McHarg,  Ian,  Design  with  Nature,  New  York:  Wiley  &  Sons  1992. 

p  40  photo  by  Mark  Wexler/  Woodfm  Camp  &  Assoc,  in  One  Earth,  San  Francisco:  Collins  Publishers,  1990. 

p  42  photo  by  Michael  Ormerod. 

p  49  article  and  ad  from  New  York  Times,  November  19, 1991. 

p  50  diagram  from  Doxiadis  Associates  Brochure,  1965. 

p  51  world  map  from  Doxiadis,  C.  A.,  Ecology  and  Ekistics,  Boulder:  Westview  Press,  1977. 

p  52  cisterns  from  Doxiadis  Associates  Brochure,  1965. 

p  62         Max  Reinhardt  Haus  project  by  Peter  Eisenman  from  Eisenman  Architects:  Selected  and  Current  Works.  Victoria, 
Australia:  The  Images  Publishing  Group  Pty  Ltd,  1995. 

p  73         Bomarzo  image  from  Schuyt,  Michael,  et.  al.  Fantastic  Architecture.  New  York:  Henry  N.  Abrams,  Inc.  1980. 

back  cover  photo  "Manhattan"  by  U.S.  Air  Force. 


83 


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